Fortune's Fool
by Siu Jerk Jai
Summary: A mage on a ship brings nothing but ill fortune, or so the saying goes. Isabela has a habit of tempting fate. A post-DA2 tale chronicling the adventures of Captain Isabela and the origin of the Dread Pirate Anders. Rated M for Isabela being Isabela.
1. The Pickup

The seaward wind had just begun to puff the sails and flutter Isabela's air when the shout came up from aft.

"Trouble on the docks, Captain."

With a smirk, Isabela glanced over her shoulder. In nearly every port in Thedas, "trouble" and "docks" were nearly synonymous. Headed into port, trouble meant a massive headache of docking delays, cranky customs officials, and the occasional risk of ramming by a vessel attempting a getaway. Headed out to sea, trouble meant an entertaining show off the stern. Already half her crew had bellied up to the rail; coppers clinked in palms as they bet over the likeliest source of the commotion. Chances were they'd never know for sure, but that never stopped the men from squabbling over who had the right of it and who owed whom.

Turning from the widening view of white-tipped swells and gulls wheeling in the cloudless mid-afternoon sky, Isabela sauntered aft. The crew jostled and shuffled a bit to clear her a space at the rail beside her beefy first mate. Isaac lowered a spy glass from his one good eye and offered it to her with a gruff snort.

"Port authority after some thief, I'd wager."

Isabela peered through the glass, scanning the rock-lined edge of the quay. Her gaze finally caught on a sprinting figure, all flapping rags and matted hair. The haze of shabbiness broke only over the perfectly straight arrow jutting out from the figure's shoulder and the line of dark red flowing from it. She held position with her gaze, and the chased fled from her glass circle. The chasers soon appeared—in gleaming silver armor rather than the blue livery of the Ayesleigh docking authority.

"I've never seen any city guard exert that much energy for a thief," she murmured. Even she'd made a clean escape from Kirkwall four years ago, and Aveline had been standing all of twenty yards away at the time. Of course, the sudden uprising of several hundred angry qunari might have prevented a proper investigation, but still, she'd been a little disappointed to arrive at Ostwick without even a hint of pursuit.

Beside her, Isaac grunted. "Maybe he diddled some nobleman's daughter."

"I hope she was worth it," Isabela replied, swinging the glass to find the hunted man again, "because he's about to run out of pier."

As the words left her mouth, the ragged figure skidded to a stop at the sea edge of a stone jetty. Four guards cut off the other end, and their prey cast about wildly before raising bare hands before him. The breeze carried the tone of the shouted pleas, though not the words. Jeers and the odd "Good luck with that, mate!" rang out from her crew, but Isabela felt a knot tighten in her belly. Some portentous whisper in the back of her mind told her that rather than pleading mercy, the man was attempting to warn the guards.

Regardless, they advanced. Before they made it ten steps, the hair on Isabela's arms rose in a familiar way and lightning shot down from the clear blue sky with a crack like the Maker drilling His Bride into His holy headboard. Three of the guards writhed on the stone as licks of energy flared along their metal armor. The wind picked up again, scooping along wisps of smoke tinged with the smells of burnt hair and ozone. Cheers and shouts of "Apostate!" went up from half the crew, while the other half grumbled and handed over their coin. Since the mess in Kirkwall eight months ago, mage was becoming the safe bet for the source of trouble on any docks. Or anywhere else for that matter.

The fourth guard gaped down at his fallen fellows for a long moment, then shakily raised his sword again and continued toward the mage, who had all but dropped to his knees after his display. When he did nothing more but scramble back on his hands and heels, the guard broke into a run and raised his sword over his head for the final blow. Another flash of energy flared, but instead of seeking out the guard, it crawled over the mage's skin. Even so, the remaining guard faltered for a step—long enough for the mage to fling himself into the rocky surf.

The crew's taunts and shouts extinguished into an uneasy quiet. Every sailor had seen more than enough drownings, and few had any desire to see more. Muttered prayers went up, then the crew began to file away, back to their duties, more soberly than before.

"Poor sod," Isaac said. "He'd better hope he drowns before that wound draws up any ugly beasties from below."

He made to turn away and Isabela opened her mouth to stop him, but she had to swallow around a throat suddenly thick with the remembered taste of rat-laced whiskey. Somewhere in her chest her good sense was wrestling with a ridiculous feeling of half-forgotten loyalties and something that twisted a lot like regret. Because in the instant of the second flare, she'd seen the eyes beneath the lank reddish-blond hair glow blue.

"Come about," she finally managed.

When she lowered the glass, Isaac blinked at her. "Beg pardon, Captain?"

"I said, Come about," she snapped. "Come about!" she hollered to the helmsman. The young man's gaze darted to Isaac, but when he looked back to meet Isabela's glare, he jumped and gave the wheel a hard turn.

Isabela stalked to the port side as the sails began to creak with the ship's maneuvering. "Prepare a line!" she shouted. "Haul him up!"

As the crew scrambled to obey her orders, she raised the spyglass again and searched the waves for the floundering figure. Wet-slick hair plastered thick over what she could now plainly see was Anders's face. Lines of panic and pain marred his features as he struggled to stay afloat with an injured arm. At first his only aim seemed to be away from the quay, but as the shadow of her ship cut across the waves, he turned. His eyes—returned to their normal brown—widened, then he began a torturous crawl toward the advancing vessel. By the time they got anywhere near close enough to throw out a line, she could see his strength was almost at an end.

At her order, the line went out, and Anders fumbled again and again to catch it up in numb fingers. Autumn clung to the coastal air of Rialto Bay, but the water bit with winter's chill. Even after he'd caught the line, his face showed the strain of keeping a grip with his injured arm. He could do nothing to haul himself up. Fortunately her crew had finally decided that their captain was serious about scooping up the half-drowned mage, and several of her strongest made quick work of pulling Anders aboard.

"Collapse" would have been too pretty a term for the face-first way he flopped over the rail and down to the deck. Isabela crouched beside him, slamming the palm of her hand in sharp thrusts against the middle of his back until he choked up most of the seawater he'd swallowed. As he gasped for breath and shudders started to race up his spine, she raised her head back to the helmsman.

"Resume course!" she bellowed.

He nodded and she turned to Isaac, still rubbing circles over the shivering mage's back. "Crack open that case of lyrium in the hold and bring a bottle to my cabin."

Isaac raised the scarred eyebrow that hovered over his missing eye. "The buyer's not going to like it if some of his stock's gone missing."

"The buyer's a little shit who'd piss himself if I showed him so much as the flat side of a butter knife," Isabela replied. "Now go," she added with a little nod of her head.

After he'd scooted off, grumbling to himself, Isabela looked back down at the man lying prone on her deck. She stepped over him to crouch in front of his face, and eyes that had been staring blankly at her deck rolled sluggishly toward her—then flew wide in surprise.

"Isabela?" Anders rasped, in a voice scraped raw with brine.

"That's Captain Isabela," she replied with a slight tilt of her lips. Her gaze roved over him—the torn and threadbare robes, the shaggy hair, the overgrown beard that gave truth to the hearty northern blood that was the source of his nickname—and her smile vanished as that same spot in her chest squeezed again.

"You sorry git," she sighed. Shaking her head, she worked an arm under his too-thin frame and helped him rise to wobbly legs. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up."

Half-carrying Anders to the ladder that led below decks was slow work, and by the time they reached it, Isabela's clothes were nearly as soaked as his. But if she was bothered by a little seawater, then she'd chosen the wrong lifestyle. It wasn't the first time her crew had seen her in a see-through tunic, and it wouldn't be the last.

Anders more fell than climbed down the ladder, but he at least landed on his feet. The narrow corridor down below made things easier; he was able to pull himself along with his good hand braced against the planking. They reached the small door to her cabin, and she reached across him to open it.

Unlike the captain's cabins on most ships, Isabela's cabin occupied space at the bow rather than the stern. She'd never seen anything like it before this ship, and she'd decided from the moment she laid eyes on it that she would never want it any other way. She loved the wedge shape of the room, the nearly triangular bunk and table, the clever storage boxes worked into the space near the door. But most of all she loved the twin portholes, one on either side of the keel, where she could look out into the open ocean and see where they were headed—much more useful and more fun that seeing where they'd already been. She spent hours staring out those windows, feeling as though she were looking out the eyes of the ship, sharing the same beautiful vision.

All of it was lost on Anders, of course, as he stood shivering and dripping like a bilge-drowned rat in the narrow space between bunk and table.

Every time she looked him over, a sigh escaped, like her breath didn't enjoy what she was seeing and would rather escape to somewhere more pleasant. "Strip out of those clothes and get into the bunk."

His bowed head finally rose, but he only looked from her to the bunk and back to her with an expression of incomprehension, or maybe incredulity, on his face.

She crossed her arms under her chest. "I wouldn't think a healer would be so modest." She gestured to herself, head to toe, with one hand. "Isn't it all just parts to fix for you?"

"Not modesty," he said through chattering teeth. "I'm just wondering if I really w-want to touch your bed with my b-bare ass."

Isabela's laugh held relief for the glimpse of a man she recognized. "I don't sleep with my men, sweetness. No one's been in that bunk except me, myself, and I," she said, clapping a hand to each breast. "And the occasional well-oiled toy." Also, the occasional well-oiled guest (or two), but she kept that part to herself.

After hesitating a moment longer, Anders raised a hand and began working loose the clasps of his robes. Isabela went to her storage boxes, poking through them to find her personal store of clean bandages and healing poultices and the accoutrements for her non-daily grooming, including the scissors she used to cut her own hair. A sharp hiss drew her attention back to the mage. He'd worked the robes off his good shoulder, and now they hung from the other, their sodden weight pulling down on the arrow and twisting away every time he tried to grab them.

Rolling her eyes, Isabela dumped the bandages on her table and stalked toward him with the scissors. She sliced clean through the robes from the neck to the long rent torn by the arrow, and they dropped to the deck with a wet-sounding smack. Anders sighed in relief, closing his eyes and clutching at his injured arm.

"Thank you," he murmured, then opened his eyes to offer her a half-hearted smile. The beard could not completely hide his pale, sunken cheeks. Gooseflesh crawled across the exposed skin of his chest, still marbled with cold. Isabela's mind wandered back to when Hawke had found a canvas sack washed up on the shores of the Wounded Coast. Isabela had tried to warn her, but Hawke, ever the scavenger, had refused to be deterred, only to recoil in shock and horror at uncovering the corpses of half a dozen drowned kittens. Even Fenris had turned his head away. Anders's eyes had brimmed with tears as he tried in vain to heal them.

A knock on the door broke her from her reverie, and she turned away as Anders took up her sheet and wrapped it around his waist before wriggling out of his breeches and smallclothes. Behind the door, her first mate stood on the threshold, bearing a tray with the lyrium, a steaming bowl of stew, a bread roll, and a green apple.

"Ah, Isaac. You're a treasure," she said as she took the tray from his hand.

"And you're a fool," he growled back. His gaze shifted over her shoulder, and one hand rose to thumb the gold hoop in his ear like a worry token. "A mage on a ship brings nothing but ill fortune. You know it as well as I."

Isabela raised an eyebrow. "I never pegged you for the superstitious sort."

One dark eye returned to her. "It's not superstition. It's fact. More so since Kirkwall."

Her head turned and her own gaze flicked behind her to where Anders sat hunched in her bunk. At the name of the city, his head ducked a little deeper into his shoulders.

"I'll take care of it," she said to Isaac. "Now go sail my ship."

Shaking his head, the big man departed, and Isabela shut the door behind him. Setting the tray on the table, she scooped up the lyrium and extended it to Anders. He accepted the bottle with another pathetic attempt at a smile and swallowed it down. As the last drops drained he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath in through his nose and holding it a moment before blowing it out. Isabela climbed into the bunk beside him. She took back the bottle, tossed it onto the table, and then got a firm grip on the quivering arrow shaft.

"Ready?" she asked.

Anders nodded, and without further comment, she yanked on the arrow. The arrowhead pulled free with a soft squelch of torn flesh, and Anders grunted in pain. When he didn't open his eyes, when he began to sway in a rhythm counter to the ship's movement, she steadied him with a hand splayed against the center of his chest.

"I can get more lyrium," she said.

He shook his head (though that only made him sway more) and finally raised the opposite hand to his injured shoulder. A pale blue glow encased his fingers, and she pulled away and stood, then ducked under her table for her basin, a small towel, and her canteen of washing water. The cabin fell silent except for the creak of the rigging and boot steps above them as she scrubbed the blood from her hands. When she looked back, Anders's eyes were open in a face with noticeably more color. She handed him the bowl of stew and sat beside him again to wipe the gore from his now whole shoulder.

"What is this?" he asked warily, looking into the bowl.

"Salted pork in some sort of broth. Sip the broth while it's warm. By the time it's done, the pork should be soft enough to chew."

Anders's first sip ending in a sputtering cough, and he reached across to set the bowl back on the table with a grimace of distaste. "I think I've swallowed enough salt for today."

Isabela's towel caught the last drip of his blood before it could stain her sheet, and she shook her head as she rose. "All those years in Darktown and you turn your nose up at this?" She exchanged red-stained towel and basin for the apple and the roll. The bread's surface crumbled rather than gave under the pressure of her fingers. "Enjoy it while you can," she said as she handed him the food. "The fresh fruit and bread won't last. In two days' time you'll be eating hard tack."

Anders grimaced again but took the food eagerly. As he devoured the roll, she grabbed up her scissors and settled behind him once more.

"What are you doing?" he mumbled around a mouthful.

"Shut up and keep still." She ran her fingers through his drying hair and immediately regretted it. She was certainly no stranger to the smell of stale male sweat and Maker knew that after a few weeks at sea she could wring out her head scarf and collect enough oil to light her lamp, but the lank locks in her hand could have fried an unfortunate fish, even more so since they were also crusted with sea salt.

"Ugh. When was the last time you had a proper bath?"

"A while," Anders muttered. The roll had disappeared, and the apple seemed poised to follow its fate.

Isabela attacked his hair with more aggression than style, but by the time she was done, it at least hung only to his shoulder in a more or less straight line, enough for a decent ponytail instead of that pitiful puff he'd sported in Kirkwall. She scooted around to kneel in front of him, snatching away the apple core that was barely more than seeds and stem. As she set to work assassinating his beard, the corners of his eyes crinkled a bit, and her lips quirked in response. The end result wasn't completely neat and even, but it was at least shorter and less like he'd just stumbled out of some obscure mountain cave somewhere.

As she stood, her knees cracked, and after she placed the scissors on the table, she knuckled the stiffness in her lower back. "If you want a proper shave, you'll have to borrow a razor from one of the men."

"Thank you," he said again, this time with more sincerity and less dead-kitten desolation.

"You're welcome." Returning to her storage boxes, she dug out a halfway decent bottle of rum. She pulled out the cork, took a long drink, then stood in front of him, one hand on her hip and the other offering the bottle. When he hesitated, she narrowed her eyes. "Tell your spirit to take it because I'm about to ask you about Kirkwall."

The word set off a cascade of small flinches—the tightening of his jaw, the narrowing of his eyes, the creases in his brow. Someone glared at her from behind those brown eyes—man or spirit, she couldn't tell—but the only reply came from a hand snatching the bottle to dry, chapped lips.

"I won't ask specifics," Isabela said while Anders took a long drink. "The rumors flew like a bloody hurricane, but the nut of them said a renegade mage blew up the Chantry. I figure that says most of what I want to know."

Anders pulled the bottle from his lips, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, all the while still glaring like he wasn't sitting naked in her bunk on her ship. "Then what exactly are you asking?"

Leaning back on her table, Isabela felt her fingers curl under to grip the wood. Her heart beat an uneven staccato against that damn squeeze in her chest. "What happened to Hawke and the others?"

The lines in his forehead changed shape, transfigured to something softer, before he looked down at the deck. The bottle rolled between his palms. "They fought the templars. _We_ fought the templars. We had to. Meredith declared the Rite of Annulment. They would have slaughtered every mage within the city."

"How did you get out? You couldn't have killed every templar in Kirkwall."

"No." Anders hunched lower, arms resting on the sheet covering his thighs. "Meredith… she changed. She had that idol we found in the Deep Roads." He glanced up from beneath the curtain of his hair. "You saw what it did to Varric's brother. The templars couldn't stand for that."

Much of that night in Hightown was hazy in Isabela's memory, blotted out by her attempts to get Varric to crack a smile again, attempts that in retrospect looked an awful lot like a three-day binge. "But then what? They let you go?"

"No, not… It was more like they didn't give chase." With a sigh, Anders rubbed a hand across his haggard face. "Maybe that's the same thing? I don't know. _Not_ being pursued by templars was sort of a novel experience for me."

Isabela shook her head, and the wood of her table pushed back against the fingernails she tried to dig in. "And Hawke and the others? They got away as well? They're all… ?" She couldn't finish the rest of the phrase, couldn't find the _fine_ or the _alive_, too busy bracing for the _all but_ or the _except for_.

Anders nodded with the same sympathetic look she'd seen him give the loved ones of his patients in Darktown. "All of them."

Visions of a past life welled up—of playing cards and swapping bullshit, of fighting and of laughing—and for once she let them. She'd spent too many nights crawling into a bottle trying not to imagine tattoos marred with blood or nimble fingers broken or strong shields shattered. "Where are they now?"

Anders's eyes sought the deck again. "No idea," he murmured. "Hawke made it clear she would have none of me. At dagger point."

Looking down at the bent head draped in tangled hair, exasperation filled the spaces that worry had carved out and now vacated. "You self-absorbed wanker."

Anders's gaze snapped up to her face, and this time she could feel the glare of both beings within. "That's rich coming from you. You abandoned us to save your own skin." Shards of blue flickered across the whites of narrowed eyes. "Do you have any idea how many innocent people the qunari killed? How close the Arishok came to ripping Hawke apart?"

"It was a stupid book," Isabela retorted, hands going to her hips. "I didn't tell them to attack the city over it."

"But you knew they would," Anders spat back. "It's a part of their religion. They could not let that be. Doing so would have been as good as damning themselves in their eyes."

Isabela snorted. "And do you think there's a templar in Thedas that would not say the same?"

Antagonizing a mage with a stowaway spirit was a sure path to fulfilling her first mate's prophecy of ill fortune, and she braced for a sudden storm as Anders's eyes widened. But a thin wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows. He blinked once, twice, and then turned his head away. "What I did I did for all mages," he muttered. The voice was his own, though hoarse and low. "I thought you would understand. Don't you value freedom above all?"

"I value choice. Did you give those mages in the Gallows any choice in your rebellion? Did you even ask them if they wanted to fight?" She pushed away from the table to stand straight before him. "I may be a selfish wretch, but at least I'm not a hypocrite."

When he didn't meet her gaze, she just shook her head again. "I have some soap stashed away. Do us both a favor: find it and use it before you sleep in my bunk."

Her boot steps thunked loud on the deck as she walked out of her cabin and closed the door behind her.


	2. The Sex

When Isabela returned to her cabin late that night, the full moon shone through the portholes and painted a fine silver wash over Anders's bare ass. A rumbling snore cut through the rhythm of the waves breaking on the hull, and her lips quirked in a smirk. He'd sprawled on his stomach, face toward the planking. From somewhere he'd dug out the thick red blanket she'd picked up on one of her rare trips to the Anderfels, but rather than covering him, it was pinned beneath his hips and snaking out from between his legs, as if he'd fallen asleep in the middle of showing it a delightful evening. She sincerely hoped that wasn't the case; if anyone was going to be molesting her blanket, it should be her.

But a fortunate side effect of Anders's sordid affair with the blanket was that it left her sheet crumpled and lonely beside her bunk. She took off her earrings and necklace and laid them on the table, then peeled off her boots and let her head scarf and tunic drop to the deck. When she lay out on the leftover space in the bunk, sheet in hand, she stretched languidly, relishing the rare pleasure of an already-warmed bed. She shifted to her side, draped the sheet over herself, and sank into a dreamless sleep.

Only seconds seemed to pass before she woke again, but the angle of the moon had changed, leaving most of the cabin in darkness. A grunt sounded from behind her, and she peered over her shoulder to see the long curve of Anders's spine as he curled in on himself. He grunted again, low in his throat, and Isabela sat up, grinning to chide him for wanking in her bunk.

His hand suddenly flew up, slamming into the planking before him as if he were trying to reach the water beyond. He reached back, then pounded the planking again with fingers gnarled into stiff claws. Isabela's grin died as she studied his face. In the dim light, she could see no glint from his eyes, only one from bared teeth. As he slammed his hand a third time, the snarl of animal aggression dwindled to a whimper. Isabela remembered a morning on the _Siren's Call_ years ago when Zevran had emerged from below decks with dark circles beneath his eyes and a light-hearted warning to never share a bed with a Grey Warden if she valued undisturbed slumber.

"Anders," she murmured, laying her hand on his shoulder. She brushed the hair back from his face, then slid her fingers down to rub circles on his back as she had when they'd dredged him from the water. "Anders, wake up."

An unseen force blasted her from the bunk. The back of her head slammed into a table leg, and stars pinwheeled across her vision. As they cleared, they were replaced by the steady blue glow emanating from the figure rising from the bunk.

"Filthy slattern!" Justice accused. "You would touch him without his consent? Without his consciousness?"

Isabela gingerly prodded at the ache beneath her hair, and when her fingertips came away dark and wet, any fear dissolved into anger. "I was trying to help him," she snapped.

Anders's lips twisted with Justice's contempt as the flame-lit eyes looked over her naked form. "He needs no help that you can provide."

"Oh, yeah?" she retorted. "I saved his life today, you ungrateful bastard."

"That gives you no claim on his physical form!" the spirit roared, looming over her.

Using the table for support, she pulled herself to her feet. "He was having a nightmare."

The blue light flared, and sparks crackled through Anders's hair. "You would use falsehoods to justify your seduction! Have you no natural morality?"

"I've never needed false anything to seduce anyone, you self-righteous prick." With two fingers, she pointed at her own head and tapped her temples. "Maker's blood! You live in his head! Can't you tell when he's having a nightmare?"

The sneer on Anders's lips lost some of its bite when they pressed together. "Our connection is not as strong when he wanders the Fade."

"But he's a Grey Warden, isn't he?" she pressed. "Grey Wardens have nightmares." Or so she'd been told. She fervently hoped Zev had been telling the truth on that one and that it wasn't some peculiarity of the Hero of Ferelden.

The spirit's light illuminated the line that formed between Anders's eyebrows. "I… witnessed such in Amaranthine," Justice admitted. After a long moment, the light began to dim. "There may be truth to your words," Justice said. "If my accusations are unjust, then I make my apology." The glowing eyes narrowed. "But I will be watching you, pirate."

Isabela snapped off a rude gesture as Anders dropped to his knees before her. His head snapped up a moment later, and he scrambled to his feet, though Isabela noticed his brown eyes darted down below her neck before meeting her gaze. "Isabela?" he asked. "What are you doing here?"

"This is my cabin, idiot," she replied, leaning one hip against the table and rubbing at her head.

"Yes, but… you said I could sleep here."

"That didn't mean I wouldn't. I told you, I don't sleep with my men."

Anders looked away and ran a hand through his hair. His fingers slipped easily through the strands, which she hoped meant he had found some soap and a comb. "I could have slept elsewhere."

"It was sleep here in a real bunk with me or find yourself sandwiched between two burly men in a rope hammock." A smirk crossed her lips. "Actually now that I say it out loud, that doesn't sound that bad."

"It would depend on the men," Anders agreed with a slight smile. The tilt of his lips disappeared when he turned back to her, his eyes narrowing as if he was finally seeing her—or her head at any rate. He stepped closer, one hand outstretched. "You're injured."

"Your friend thought I was taking advantage. He was trying to protect your virtue."

Anders cupped gentle fingers beneath the injury. "He's a couple decades too late for that." A wave of tingling energy burrowed into her skull, and a calmer sort of light filled the cabin. "He might have been less inclined to get the wrong idea if you'd worn clothes to bed. Or warned me to."

"How I sleep is none of his business," Isabela replied. The tingle chased the pain away, and she let out a breathy moan of relief. The pale light faded, but not before she saw Anders lick his lips.

Only a fraction of moonlight remained in the cabin, but she could hear him fumbling with something on the table behind her. A cool, wet cloth dabbed at her hair, then he took her hand in his and swiped the cloth down her fingers.

"Isabela, why are you doing this?" he asked in a quiet voice.

Her eyes had not yet adjusted completely to the darkness, but she could see enough to know he was looking down at her hand. "You're the one washing me," she answered.

"I meant why are you helping me?"

The answer lodged somewhere in the middle of those twisting feelings in her chest, the ones brought on by memories of a place she'd lived longer than nearly any other in her life. The acrid stench of smoke had chased her all the way to Ostwick, but she'd never dared to look back at the flames. If she had, she would have gone back to Kirkwall, back to Hawke, back to her death.

She shrugged. "You healed me more than once. I figure I owe you for that."

A reflection of light caught in his eyes as he looked up. "Well, whatever the reason, I should say thank you again. Help for mages is hard to come by these days." A hint of a smirk crossed his lips, but new creases in his brow quickly quelled it.

"What?" Isabela demanded. "What were you going to say before he stopped you?"

Anders shook his head, and his gaze darted down to the deck. "Nothing."

"You're a horrible liar," she remarked.

When he raised his eyes again, a hint of bitterness deepened the lines around his mouth. "I'm out of practice. Justice doesn't appreciate it when I lie." After a silent moment, he rolled his eyes. "Not even about this apparently," he muttered. "I was just… I was going to say that the view's not bad either."

Before she responded, Isabela glanced down. If she'd seen nothing, no response from him, she would have laughed, tweaked his arm, and suggested they get some sleep. But there he was—Anders's other little friend—beginning to take notice and poke his head up as if trying to get a better view. A grin slid across her lips, and she stepped closer, placing her hands on his stomach and then sliding them lower.

"Are views like this _hard_ to _come _by as well?" she asked. With each suggestive word, she gave him a little squeeze.

Anders gasped. "Isabela, I…" He trailed off with a low growl. "Justice doesn't approve."

She leaned in closer to him, letting her breath wash across his chest until he shivered. "Justice can lick my luscious Rivaini ass. So can you if it comes to that."

"Isabela…" he started again.

"How long has it been?" she interrupted. Her hand moved in lazy circles. "Since you were with a woman? Or a man for that matter?"

"About as long as it's been since I got drunk," he breathed. He seemed barely aware that he'd answered; his eyes drifted toward closing with heavy lids.

Isabela's hand stopped as she gaped up at him. "Andraste's flaming twat, are you serious? Doesn't he know you have needs beyond food and water? Haven't you ever explained?"

"I tried," Anders said wryly. "Usually right after he caught me masturbating."

"Can't you ignore him? Just shove him aside for awhile?"

"I can." A desperate hitch had crept into Anders's voice, and his hips quivered, reminding her to resume her ministrations. He stifled a moan before continuing. "But it takes… effort."

"I suppose the Blooming Rose wasn't quite worth wrestling down a spirit," she said. "But what about Hawke? With Fenris out of the picture, I would have expected you to make your move."

"He was never out of the picture," Anders snapped, and despite what her hand was doing, more than a hint of bitterness laced his voice. "She wanted him, and he went back to her. He even defended the mages at the end."

A sigh escaped him, less of pleasure than of weariness. His shoulders slumped, and he pulled away from her, wallowing in the old pain, reminding her of the old pity she'd felt all those nights at the Hanged Man. Fenris and Hawke had been a night's entertainment in and of themselves; over games of Wicked Grace, Isabela used to count the seconds that passed between the inexorable glances the elf and rogue threw at each other. But the nights Anders appeared, the nights when a third gaze was pulled into the trap, had been considerably less fun. She'd always felt torn between pleased by his determination to remain part of their little circle (especially given how frequently and spectacularly he lost) and annoyed by his seemingly endless capacity for martyrdom.

Seeing him now—head bowed, protruding ribs standing out stark in the moonlight—she sighed for the carefree man she'd met all those years ago at the Pearl in Denerim. He flinched when she touched his back, but as she slid her hand up to his neck to rub away the tension there, he relaxed into her touch.

"You would have defied Justice to be with her," Isabela said.

"Yes," he muttered, still looking at the deck.

"Then I'll be Hawke for you," she offered with a shrug.

He stiffened, and confusion lined his brow as he looked at her over his shoulder. "What?"

"I've started to help you, I may as well see it through," Isabela said. "Besides, if you can see past the breasts–" She paused for a moment, waiting for a cheeky reply about the impossibility of that task, but Anders just continued to blink at her. Smothering another sigh, she went on, "Hawke and I have a very similar fighting style," she continued. "It's given us a similar body shape. Lithe waist, smooth hips, long, lean legs…" To emphasize her point, she slipped around to face him and slid one of her knees between his. "I won't speak, and you don't have to touch my face or my breasts. Close your eyes if you like."

"Why are you doing this?" He bit back a groan as she began to work her thigh up and down. "What do you get out of it?"

She smiled, and her hand slid from his neck, down his arm, to circle his wrist. Lifting his hand, she ran the pad of his thumb across her lips. "I get sparkle fingers."

His other hand rose to her shoulder, and she waited for the pressure of his fingers to push her away, not unkindly but firmly. Instead she felt a subtle hum warming her muscles. Sparks skated across her skin, and she gasped. She smirked up at him, and he smiled back, thin and a little resigned, the look of a man too weary to continue resisting temptation. Despite the fact that most of his trouble was self-inflicted, the look wrenched something in her chest again, strengthening her resolve to help him. And if there was one way she could help him, this was it.

"Get in the bed and close your eyes," she ordered. Anders said nothing, only moved past her, releasing her shoulder as he went. Isabela shivered both at the loss of that touch and at the anticipation of more. She padded across the deck to her storage boxes and opened one she reserved for odds and ends she hadn't convinced herself to part with. Digging around, her fingers closed on a small glass vial, and she pulled it out, opened the cork, and sniffed. The mixture was mostly the extract of some fruit—pear, maybe—but the end result was a light fragrance Hawke had favored. Isabela couldn't remember now what impulse had prompted her to nick it from Hawke's dressing table all those years ago, but it would certainly suit her purposes now. She dabbed a thin trail along both wrists and behind each ear but didn't bother dotting her cleavage or anywhere lower.

As she walked back to the bunk, she nearly slipped on her discarded head-scarf. On a whim, she scooped it up and folded it into a long strip, then rubbed it against the still-damp skin of her wrist to cover it in the stolen scent. When she climbed into the bunk, she sat astride Anders's stomach and wrapped the scarf around his eyes. From the way his muscles tensed beneath her and his lips parted in surprise, she knew he'd caught the fragrance.

"Isabela?" he murmured, as if he wasn't quite sure any longer who was with him. "Where did you–?"

She cut him off with a finger against his lips, then gripped his chin with her thumb and shook his head in denial. She trailed the fingertips of her other hand slowly up his chest, letting him feel the friction of each callus. Her hands were nearly a mirror for Hawke's, she knew, the patches of roughened skin a match to the hilts of their daggers. They had shared weapons the way other women swapped clothes; Isabela had even left Kirkwall with one of Hawke's favorites strapped to her back. That little regret had pricked her guilty conscience almost more than any other, like a stubbed toe or an insect bite that still throbbed while the body lay dying.

She dug her hands into Anders's hair, scratching along the scalp, encouraging him to tilt his head toward her scented wrist. He inhaled deeply, and the exhale that followed choked a bit on a catch in his throat. She might have kissed him then, but she remembered her promise and so pushed her finger between his lips instead. His tongue swirled around it eagerly, and he sucked at it with such passion that she almost regretted straddling his stomach. Clearly he'd managed to silence his self-appointed guardian, and she felt a satisfied smile cross her lips at the thought of the spirit seething in a closed-off corner of the man's mind.

_Watch this, you glowing bastard._

* * *

><p>Sunrise the next morning filtered red through Isabela's closed eyelids, and she frowned. Her half-dozing mind pondered the herald of a change in the weather until the more awake half considered that she might lower the blanket down from off her head before making an evaluation. Before her sluggish arms could finish the job, however, stiff hips compelled her to stretch her legs. Her right foot collided with a solid wall of flesh, and she finally pulled the blanket down low enough to peer at the man sitting at the foot of her bed and rubbing a bony hip.<p>

"Ow," Anders remarked. "You know, you're horrible to share a bed with. I lost count of how many times I was elbowed in the face."

Isabela pushed herself upright, snuggling the blanket around her breasts. Modesty could be damned, but a chill hung in the cabin. (The sunrise, she was pleased to see, was in actuality a lovely shade of gold.)

"Your better half tried to give me a concussion," she reminded him.

A hint of a smirk flirted at the corner of Anders's lips as he turned his head to gaze out the near porthole. "Point taken."

"What do you think of the view?" she asked.

"Fishing for compliments?"

Her foot pushed against his shoulder. "I meant that view, idiot."

When he didn't answer right away, she looked out over the endless expanse of blue. Morning mist muted the sunlight that gilded the tips of the waves. By noon they would glitter, sharp as knives.

"It's… uncomplicated," Anders murmured.

"Well, you're welcome to it as long as you like," she said as she pushed the blanket down and hustled out of the bunk to pull on her tunic before goose bumps engulfed her entirely. "Having a healer on board could come in handy."

As she did up the laces, she watched a frown cross Anders's face. "Are you… you're asking me to join your crew?"

"You wouldn't be crew," she answered, pulling on her boots. "You'll get no share of the profits beyond what it takes to keep you."

His frown changed to a narrow-eyed smirk as if he sensed a joke at his expense and was keen to hide that he didn't get it. "And I'll take my place in the rope hammock sandwich?"

Isabela shrugged. "If you'd like. But as I said, you wouldn't be crew, so you're welcome to keep sleeping here."

The smirk faded, but his brown eyes stayed narrow. "Sleeping? Or…?"

Bending down, Isabela scooped up her head-scarf and tied it deftly as she rose. "That's up to you as well." She turned to face him with her hands on her hips. "But I have a few conditions for anything else."

One of his eyebrows rose. "Such as?"

"I'm free to sleep with whomever else I like, and so are you," she replied. "But from now on, if you're with me, you're with _me_." She glanced up at the beams above her as other possibilities flooded her mind. "Or whatever kinky role-play we've agreed upon beforehand."

When she looked down at Anders again, he'd turned back to the porthole, the line of his shoulders tense. "It's… it wouldn't be safe. There's a bounty on my head. The prince of Starkhaven saw to that," he added in a bitter undertone that made her wonder what had passed between him and Sebastian. Given the prince's dedication to the Chantry, she could guess it hadn't been pleasant.

"You might not know this," Isabela said, "but piracy is not exactly a safe profession. At least we don't run into many templars on the open sea."

He glanced at her over his shoulder. "But would your crew agree? Why shouldn't they turn me in when a sizable fortune would be their reward?"

She shrugged. "Even gold begins to lose its glitter when stacked against a life free of broken bones and lover's complaints. Make yourself useful."

Scrubbing his hands through his hair, he hid his face from her as he hunched over his knees. "How long until we reach port?"

"Proper port? Seven days. I promised some friends I'd pick them up in Antiva City at the end of Satinalia."

Anders snorted. "Proper port? Isn't that an oxymoron?" When he looked up, the suspicious tightening of his eyes had returned. "It doesn't take seven days to cross Rialto Bay."

"We have stops to make along the way." Isabela held up a hand to forestall any protests. "And those stops are of no concern to you. Or your glowing friend. You already know I don't deal with slavers."

"Lyrium smuggling?" he guessed.

"Would that be so bad?" she retorted. "Or would you rather the templars control all of the trade?"

He didn't answer, just turned away again as she went to her table and collected her earrings and necklace. "Sleep some more if you feel like it. You certainly look like you could use it."

She'd finished clasping her jewelry and was nearly to the door when his voice stopped her. "I never asked—how did you get a new ship?"

"Same way I get everything," she said with a wink. "I won it with my unsurpassed cunning and charm." All true, though it had also involved a fair bit of cheating and some fortunate backup from powerful friends. And if Zev and the Warden asked a few favors in return, she didn't really mind so much.

"What's she called?" Anders asked.

"_The Siren's Chant_."

His eyebrows rose. "Just a bit sacrilegious."

"Really?" she asked, raising an eyebrow back at him and putting a hand on her hip. "You're going to lecture me on sacrilege?" Color tinted his cheeks as he lowered his gaze, and she resisted a long-suffering sigh.

"Besides," she continued, "now if anyone asks how you survived, you can say you were saved by the Chant."

Brown eyes caught hers again, and a pitiful attempt at a smile tugged futilely at his lips. "Yes. I suppose I can."

Isabela shook her head. "I'll see if any of the crew can spare an extra shirt. I'll bring you some food as well." Anders nodded, and she ducked out the door to head above decks, wondering when exactly she had become so depressingly soft-hearted.


	3. The Dropoff

For two days Anders holed up in Isabela's cabin, sleeping for the most part from what she could tell, waking only to wolf down the food she brought him. She wondered how long it had been since he'd slept for any decent length of time. Judging by the bags under his eyes, it had been quite a while. She let him sleep, slipping into the bunk beside him when night fell. She woke him from the occasional nightmare, but Justice remained quiet. Perhaps because Anders showed no interest in another slip from chastity.

On the morning of the third day, she perched in her usual spot at the prow just above the figurehead. The old girl had seen better days—she looked more sea hag than mermaid—but Isabela wouldn't dream of replacing her. Years of the rough and ready life of a pirate took their toll on everyone.

She glanced over her shoulder at the sound of boot steps approaching. Anders looked at the horizon, squinting into the climbing sun with one hand raised to shield his eyes. He'd returned to his own boots and threadbare breeches, and Isabela had managed to secure a shirt by bribing the helmsman with the promise of a new silk one bought with her own coin when they arrived in Antiva. The material hung loose around Anders's middle while straining across his shoulders.

"Your crew has an interesting variety of infectious diseases," he remarked.

"We're well-traveled," Isabela replied. "Have you set up a clinic belowdecks then?"

Anders shook his head. "Most of the crew seems to be avoiding me. I'm basing my diagnosis on the more obvious symptoms."

The sunlight revealed the pale patches of skin across his jaw, all but white as foam for their imprisonment under the shaggy beard. "Someone lent you a razor anyway," Isabela noted.

The hand at Anders's brow lowered to rub across his chin. "Yes. And threatened to slit my throat with it if I returned it with the slightest nick." His fingers slid to the nape of his neck, and he tugged at the ponytail there. "I borrowed a bit of twine from you as well. I promise to return it in the best possible condition."

Isabela leaned back on her arms and stretched her legs out on the crate beside her. Turning her face to the sun, she closed her eyes. "See that you do."

The ship dipped into a trough, and a spray of droplets peppered her skin. "Do you really just sit here all day?" Anders asked. "Don't you get cold?"

Isabela cracked an eye open to look up at him. His hands rubbed up and down his upper arms, chafing them for warmth. "I love a rough sea," she said. "My mother read my fortune once and said I would die when the sea was calm as glass."

"Odd thing to tell your child."

"Not in Rivain."

"Is that why you always go looking for trouble?" Anders asked.

"And I'm easily bored."

He didn't reply. His gaze returned to the horizon, and she let him lapse back into his internal arguments or recriminations or whatever he and Justice did in their shared head. The bay had achieved that perfect balance between pitch and roll that entranced her better than anything in a bottle. It wasn't the open sea, of course, but her years without a ship, years with only the tantalizing view of Kirkwall's harbor to take the edge off, had given her an appreciation for waters she'd once scorned.

Anders's voice cut through her reverie. "We're heading for shore."

This time she didn't bother to open her eyes. "You're sharp. Keep that up and I'll put you on lookout in the crow's nest."

"Another lyrium deal?"

"Something like that."

When she caught Isaac's whistle over the crash of the waves and the creak of the rigging, Isabela straightened and slipped down from her perch. Her first mate caught her eye, and at her nod, he leaned down over the stern hatch, one hand extended. It was grasped by that of a robed figure—obviously female and young—who looked about nervously before climbing out onto the deck. Isabela moved to join them, but a firm hand closing on her upper arm stopped her. When she turned to glare at Anders, he glared right back.

"I thought you weren't a slaver," he accused.

"I'm not," she bit back, wrenching her arm out of his grasp.

"Then what is this?" he demanded with a wave toward where the young girl hunched in Isaac's shadow.

"This is none of your business." She didn't bother staring him down or putting her hands on her hips; she simply walked away, calling over her shoulder, "If you don't like it, feel free to swim ashore. There's a lovely Chantry in the next village you could blow up."

If Anders had glared, Isaac was bloody well trying to assassinate her with only the power of his remaining eyeball. "And there's a wind coming off the bay and carrying your words straight to your contact," he griped as she approached.

One hand waved away his concern while the other reached out to take a hold of the girl's elbow. The skittish thing jerked at the contact, pale cheeks flaming red and her gaze locked on the deck. A surge of anger flared in Isabela's gut, not for the girl but for those who'd forced her to desperation. She tamped it down behind a wide smile.

"Marena, isn't it?" she asked in a softer voice than usually rang out on deck. "Did you enjoy your trip?"

"Yes, mistress." Isabela had to strain to hear the breathy murmur over the crew's shouts as they put to anchor.

"Good. I know the stern hold's not the most comfortable, but it shuts out prying eyes." Also wandering hands, though Isabela delivered strict warnings to her crew about entering the stern compartment without her permission, warnings complete with detailed descriptions of the disembowelments that would follow if they ever disobeyed.

With a gentle nudge, she steered the girl to the rail, where the dinghy swayed on its chains. The breeze strengthened to a gust, blowing a thick strand of hair across the girl's face. She used it as an excuse to pull her arm from Isabela's grasp and tuck the lock behind her ear. The movement edged the hood back just enough to reveal the bruise yellowing her left eye. Isabela wondered if perhaps she should have told Anders about the girl, but Marena seemed to be moving about well enough. Once Isabela had climbed into the dinghy, the girl followed without stiffness or hesitation.

Isabela signaled Isaac, but his hand stayed still on the crank that would lower the skiff to the choppy waves below. "You sure you won't take any of the boys with you?" he asked.

"This one is just for us girls, Isaac. Besides, I doubt this contact will give me any trouble."

Isaac's grunt said what he thought of her judgment in such matters, but he turned the crank to begin the raucous clanking of the chain as it unwound from the winch. The dinghy lurched, and Marena's fingers jumped to curl around the edge of the bench with white knuckles, but her face stayed blank of fear or any other feeling. Speech was impossible between the wind and the grinding of the chain, so Isabela contented herself with stretching her shoulders and rolling her neck in preparation for the long row to shore. Once the dinghy dropped into the water, she unhooked the chains and took up the oars. Two strong strokes and they'd glided free of the ship and slid into the current carrying the tide toward the sand. Isabela suppressed a sigh at the thought of the slog she'd have on the return trip.

As she settled into the rhythm of rowing, she watched the girl before her. Marena didn't raise her gaze from the puddles sloshing at their feet. She didn't look to Isabela or the water around them or toward the stretch of sand and the forest that extended beyond it.

"I assume you know why your mother brought you to me?" Isabela asked.

"Yes, mistress," the girl replied, still not looking up.

"Call me Isabela. Or Captain if you prefer."

Dark brown eyes peeked up at her at that, with maybe a hint of curiosity behind them. "Yes, Captain."

Isabela grinned as she leaned back into another stroke. "So tell me about this man your father wanted you to marry."

"My father owes him money." The blank expression shifted, a slight tightening of the girl's lips, just shy of a grimace. "He… is not a kind man. He wants a new wife because his first one died."

"I'll bet," Isabela muttered, her grin fading. "How did she die?"

Marena raised her head to look out over the wave crests bobbling along in their wake. "Fell down the stairs. Or so he told my father."

"And your father believed him?"

When Marena turned back to her, all of her face was carefully controlled again, except for the frank way she met Isabela's gaze. "No. I don't think he did."

Isabela lifted a hand from the oar to gesture at her own eye. "And your father gave you that as well?"

A brief nod as Marena dropped her eyes again was the only answer she received. Not that she needed the confirmation. She remembered too well the state in which Marena and her mother had arrived at her docking in Ayesleigh in the middle of the night—both swaying on their feet, each supporting the other as the older woman begged through her split lip, desperate to know if the rumors she'd heard about the _Siren's Chant _were true. Isaac had grumbled at that, and even Isabela had frowned; gaining a reputation for this kind of thing was not what she needed.

One oar caught in a sand bar as it dipped, the first bend in a maze of shallows that led to a small spit of land extending hesitantly from the forest. By the time the bow of the skiff scraped the shoals, Isabela's head scarf clung to her forehead like a sweat-drenched second skin. She vaulted herself over the side of the boat and began hauling it ashore with a baleful glare to the three figures standing on the sand and making not a move to help her. Marena seemed torn between jumping out to help and hanging on for dear life as the dinghy bumped and jolted over unseen rocks and occasionally Isabela's boots. The latter earned the skiff more than a few good kicks and a litany of the pirate's favorite curses.

When she stood on the shore panting for breath and arching the stiffness from her back, her contact approached. The revered mother of a small-town Chantry didn't get all the fancy robes and accoutrements of someone like the grand cleric in Kirkwall, but considering what had happened to the grand cleric, dressing in secondhand robes didn't seem like such a hardship, even if they did stretch a bit threadbare over Adele's plump figure. Yet despite the lack of elegant trappings, Isabela had noted that Mother Adele had the same air of matronly disapproval as Elthina. Perhaps it was part of the novitiate training.

"Hello, Mother," Isabela remarked as she gave Marena a hand out of the dinghy. "I've brought you another wayward lamb."

The pitying cast to the mother's eyes Isabela could have done without. "I see two wayward lambs before me, child."

"I went to a lot of effort to get good and wayward," Isabela retorted. "We can't let all that work go to waste."

One of the two Chantry sisters accompanying Adele—a blonde with an enviable figure—stifled a giggle, and when Isabela winked at her, she went the most adorable shade of pink. The other sister—gray-haired and built like a battering ram—stiffened in outrage. If Isabela had possessed the slightest talent with a drawing pencil, she would have sketched the woman immediately and sent the drawing to Aveline as a warning of the future if she did not let Donnic help her extract the stick from her arse.

"Have you any skills, child?" Adele asked Marena, who stood before her with head bowed, every inch the penitent sinner, though Isabela doubted the girl had done anything remotely worthy to earn the title.

"I've a fair hand for sewing," the girl murmured. "I was taught to cook and clean, but my father always said my meals tasted of the midden heap and that I left the floor filthier than before I mopped."

"I'm sure he didn't mean it," Adele said gently.

"I'm fairly sure he did," Isabela muttered.

The revered mother spared her an impatient glance, then stepped forward to place a hand on Marena's shoulder. Unlike her reaction on Isabela's ship, the girl seemed to relax into the touch. "I will keep an ear out for those that might need darning work," Adele said, "but I'm afraid for now the only place I have is as a serving maid at the local inn."

Marena raised her head for the first time, her brow furrowed. "A tavern wench?"

"It is a respectable place," Adele assured her. "Clean and orderly, and the innkeeper tolerates no disrespect to the young women who work for him."

"Not even from himself," Isabela added. "Don't worry, kitten. It's possibly the most criminally dull tavern in all of Thedas."

Marena's gaze flicked to her before settling back on the sand in front of Adele's feet. "I…" she began, then she hunched her shoulders and bowed her head even lower. "Yes, Mother."

"What were you going to say, child?" Adele prodded.

Lifting her head, Marena met the mother's gaze in the same frank way she had displayed just once in the dinghy. "I know I have no friends to speak for me or talents to recommend me, Mother, but I would very much like… I mean… that is…" She twisted her hands in the skirt before blurting her words out in a rush. "Would you let me join your Chantry, Mother?"

Adele's gray eyebrows climbed for her hairline. "You wish to become a lay sister?"

Marena shook her head earnestly, and the hood that had concealed her thick auburn hair fell back. "No, Mother. I wish to become a novice."

"Ah, balls," Isabela said, covering her face with one hand.

She was sure she missed a scathing glare, but by the time she looked up, Mother Adele was appraising Marena with a serious expression. "A life in the Chantry is not an easy one, child. Nor is it to be entered into lightly."

"I've wished to join the Chantry since I was a girl, Mother, but my father would not allow it."

"Of course not," Isabela replied. "He couldn't let you get cloistered up in the Chantry when that luscious hair and gorgeous backside could be sold to the highest bidder."

A pink flush colored Marena's cheeks as she studied the wet sand clinging to her boots. This time Adele made certain Isabela caught her glare before addressing the girl. "If the Maker wishes you to serve him, then none shall stand in your way."

When Marena looked up, her eyes shone with gratitude and the glow of religious fervor, and Isabela sighed. At least it distracted from the outline of her father's fist on her face. Adele waved to the young blonde sister, and she scuttled over to collect her charge. Within moments she was chattering away and guiding Marena toward the forest path that led to the nearby village, the gray-haired battle-ax following behind with hands folded in her robes and a tongue that clucked with displeasure whenever a giggle escaped the other two.

Adele turned back to Isabela, and something about the smug set of her lips sent the pirate's hands to her hips. Before the mother could congratulate her on sending a sweet young thing to a joyless and sexless existence, Isabela cut her off. "The Maker seems to wish that many nubile young women would serve Him. Perhaps I have something to learn from Him after all."

The revered mother shook her head, but her smile remained indulgent. "You've done His work today, child."

"It won't happen again," Isabela replied.

After a glance back to where the sisters had entered the forest, Adele dipped her hand into the pocket of her robes and pulled out a palm-sized glass bottle. "You didn't get this from me," she murmured as she handed it to Isabela.

The bottle bore the label of one of the finer brandy distilleries in Antiva. Isabela held it up to sun, watching the light refract through the amber liquid as it sloshed in the bottle, no higher than half full.

"Yes," Isabela said with a smirk, "and I don't know who drank the rest of it either."

Adele spread her hands wide, then opened her mouth to speak—undoubtedly to proclaim her innocence—but a furrowed brow suddenly clouded her expression. "Are you expecting company?"

Even before she looked to the sea behind her, Isabela's heart picked up its pace and her boots turned in the sand. Just at the edge of the horizon, beyond the _Chant_, a white sail swelled with the shoreward wind.

"Maker's-dick-sucking lips of Andraste," she swore.

As she dashed back to the waterline, Mother Adele fell into a lumbering jog beside her. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that," she panted. With a grunt of effort, she shoved against the little skiff, forcing it to release its hold on the shore as Isabela leapt inside. The oars fought against her as she sought purchase in the shoals, then bit into the sand. The dinghy jolted before finally righting itself and finding its way into deeper waters.

"May the Maker guide your path," Adele called from the shore.

"I've never needed a man to chart my course, Mother," Isabela called back. The wind whipped her hair across her face as she looked over her shoulder with eyes only for her ship. "I don't intend to start now."

The journey back to the ship was just as back-breaking as she'd predicted, and she burned through several more diatribes regarding various parts of Andraste's anatomy. By the time the dinghy slipped into the shadow of the _Chant_, her arms felt loose and liquid. She let the oars drop, not caring when they knocked off the edges of the skiff and into the water, and launched herself as high as she could up the chain dangling from the ship's winch without bothering to hook it to the dinghy. Obtaining a new dinghy was a matter of an afternoon's trading in a boatyard. Obtaining a new ship was an experience Isabela hoped never to repeat.

Her shoulders ground in their sockets as she pulled herself up hand over hand. Above her she could hear Isaac's shouted commands, and above that was the screech of the gulls following in the wake of the approaching ship. When only a meter of chain separated her from the rail, Anders appeared, leaning out and grasping her forearm to haul her up. As soon as her feet were flat on the deck, she pushed away from him and ran forward.

"Weigh anchor!" she bellowed as she shoved through the scrambling crew. "About ship!" Behind her she could hear Anders's grunts and the crew's curses as they collided with the mage.

Isaac stood in the bow, feet solidly planted as the ship began to pitch beneath them. Wordlessly he handed her his spyglass. The flag whipping off the other ship's mast carried a black and bloody boar snarling at the sky. Evets had introduced her once to a crony of his with the same mark as a tattoo, but she'd be damned if she could remember the bastard's name. Or whether or not she'd slept with him.

"Who are they?" Anders asked as she lowered the glass.

"Raiders."

"Raiders?" His brow furrowed as he squinted out at the narrowing stretch of waves between the two ships. "But aren't you raiders as well?"

"Yes. And now they think I've picked something up."

Anders just looked back at her with the same confused expression, and Isabela wasted a moment puzzling out the best way to convey the sheer breadth of stupidity of his question, but finally settled for a withering glare before ordering the crew to take up their crossbows. For someone who'd blown up dozens of innocent people, the mage was hopelessly naïve if he believed the old saw about honor among thieves. When she turned back, she nearly slammed into him as he hovered like a brothel madam watching her charges count out their gold.

"Stop stepping on my shadow and make yourself useful!" she snapped, shoving at his shoulder. "Set something on fire, preferably on the other ship."

He hustled in the direction she'd sent him, glancing back at her as he went, but she turned her back on him to face the oncoming threat. The first crossbow bolt whined over the sound of the surf being churned by the two ships. She'd outfitted the most able men on her crew with crossbows she'd had specially made, and she knew their reach was beyond those carried by any other sailor or captain. The smith had through she was daft as he looked over her crudely drawn schematic, but with a wink and a thrust of cleavage, she'd convinced him to give it a try on the word of a brilliant lady named Bianca.

But superior firepower didn't prevent the other vessel from bearing down on them with a speed the _Chant_ couldn't hope to match, not on the open sea and certainly not penned in to shore by a strong counter wind. Just the foremast of the three-rigged ship dwarfed her own schooner's main mast. She launched into a shouted diatribe against Evets and all his stupid marauders, including a detailed description of where they could all shove their masts and what exactly said masts were compensating for, all the while racking her brain for the name of the man with the tattoo and, more importantly, what she could remember of his sexual proclivities.

A bolt of light crackled between the two ships, cutting Isabela off mid-rant. Thunder boomed out of the cloudless sky, loud enough to rattle her teeth, and the main mast of the other ship burst into tinder. Isabela swung around. In a circle of space vacated by all the other crew, Anders stood amidships, twirling the mop used for swabbing the deck over his head like a staff. Her gaze seemed to draw his, and glowing blue eyes fixed on hers with inhuman intensity. The lines in Anders's face were etched deep with righteous rage. A new adrenaline coursed through her body, outscreaming the old, familiar danger of being boarded. It cried out that to the spirit the mage harbored, her ship and the other were one and the same, compatriots in crime, allies in injustice.

She stared back at him, desperation hardening her own eyes. "Don't you dare," she murmured.

The figure lit by magic blinked, though she knew he hadn't heard her words. The lines softened, and Anders slowly lowered the mop to the deck. Isabela didn't waste a breath for relief. The other ship was close enough now that she could hear the shouts as they tried to correct for the struck-down mast. Crossbow bolts sizzled through the air, and the dull clank of boarding hooks sounded for the first time, as the other crew redoubled their efforts to take the _Chant_. Isabela bellowed orders as she strode aft, ordering the helmsman to come about and the men in the rigging to find the tack that would lead them away from shore before the other ship could recover.

Between one step and the next, pain exploded in Isabela's upper thigh, and she crumpled to the deck, choking back a sob. She arched her back and writhed on the rough planks for an incoherent moment before instinct curled her toward her injured leg. With trembling hands she groped for the wound and for reassurance that her leg, despite how it felt, was still very much attached to her body. Hot blood coated her fingers and the thick metal shaft they found. When they followed the contour of the bolt, to the ring that topped it and the coarse rope that scratched her knuckles, she ground her teeth together. Behind her, somewhere distant, beyond the haze of agony, someone was shouting her name. She ignored them, ignored the panic banging in her own chest, ignored everything but tightening her grip on the bolt and yanking with every ounce of strength she could summon. She whimpered as the metal grated against bone until with a final pop, the bolt slid free. A moment later, it ripped from her hands to skitter and clatter across the deck before flying over the rail.

The black spots floating in front of her eyes began to pulse in time with her heart. They faded to white, but the blue of the sky fought back. The blue engulfed her, sinking deep, and the first sound that cut through the fog was her own relieved sigh as the pain gradually receded. She blinked up at the sails stretched taut above her. Lurching to sit up, she was grateful for the arm that ducked beneath her back to support her.

"Take it easy. We're free of them, and they're not following," Anders assured her.

His hand circled around her waist, and he hoisted Isabela to her feet. She winced as a dull ache lanced through her thigh and her head swam like she'd downed a vat of the Hanged Man's worst whiskey.

"Come on," the mage said. "Let's get you cleaned up. You've made a filthy mess of both of us." And in the moment he turned her in a new direction, she would have bet her last sovereign that time had unraveled and he was guiding her through the streets of Lowtown.

But Lowtown had never smelled of saltwater and tar, and as they passed by Isaac, she did her best to command as a captain should. But her "Resume course to Antiva" came out more as a croak than a bellow, and the look that Isaac gave her was a mirror to the one she'd given Anders—as if no words could communicate the unfathomable stupidity of her order, as if she'd just informed him that wind made the ship go or that the sea beneath them was in fact wet. Anders didn't even wait for Isaac to nod toward her cabin before leading her to the hatch that led belowdecks.

They fumbled along down the ladder and corridor much as they had when he came aboard. When he pushed the door to her cabin open, she stumbled toward her bunk, but Anders caught her hand and settled her on the deck instead. She couldn't even summon the energy for a nasty glare.

"You'll ruin the bedding and I'm willing to bet you haven't got any extra," he explained as he began bustling about. He dragged out her basin and poured half her freshwater into it before he handed her the canteen with the rest.

"Here. Drink this," he said, then bent down to peel her boots off.

Isabela took a long swallow and grimaced. "Water? Without even a splash of whiskey? What sort of demon are you?"

"You need it. Where that bolt was, you could have bled to death," he said as he soaked a cloth in the basin. "Which you wouldn't have done if you'd listened to me and left it in until I could take care of it."

She drank more of the water, then lifted her forearm to wipe across her mouth until she noticed it was caked in blood. "It was a tow bolt, idiot. Or did you miss the rope? They get enough of those in your hull and they can drag you wherever they like. They get one of those in your body and they use you as chum dangling from a line."

He ignored her as he swiped the wet cloth up and down her leg with clinical efficiency. When he approached the newly healed wound, the muscle throbbed and she swatted his hand away. "I swear you used to be better at this," she griped.

"I'm trying to keep a hold of Justice." Anders didn't meet her eyes as he gathered up the blood-soaked hem of her tunic and helped her pull it over her head. "He still wants to know who that girl was."

"I told you, it's none of his business."

"Will you at least tell me why your first mate all but shoved me into a cargo crate the moment we came within sight of shore?"

Leaning her bare back against her bunk, Isabela held out an arm for him to wash. "I had Chantry business."

"Chantry business." Honey-colored eyes looked up at her, one eyebrow cocked skeptically, even as he scrubbed the gore from her skin. "Since when do you have any dealings with the Chantry?"

"Chantry. Templars. Lyrium trade." She switched the canteen to her now-clean hand and took another drink as he scoured the other to tingling. "Surely even your spirit can follow that line of reasoning."

"And the girl?" he asked. He dropped the filthy cloth back into the basin but kept a tight grip on her fingers.

She snatched them back. "A smuggler."

"She didn't look like a smuggler."

Isabela shrugged. "If that's the best you can grasp the concept of not attracting attention, it's no wonder I had to fish you out of the harbor."

Anders just watched her for a long moment, and again Isabela was struck by uncertainty as to who exactly was looking at her from behind those eyes. Perhaps had she known Anders the Grey Warden, she could have told him about the "errands" she'd run before and since Kirkwall and they could have commiserated over finding themselves at the mercy of the Warden-Commander's seemingly unthwartable will. She might have even admitted that she didn't always mind. But as far as she was concerned, Justice didn't deserve an explanation, and he certainly didn't deserve a true one.

Eventually Anders sighed into the silence and tugged off his own blood-stained shirt. "So there's an aft cabin?" he asked, his voice muffled by the fabric as it slid over his head.

"You're welcome to it." Isabela nearly groaned as she climbed up into her bunk and stretched her cramping leg. "Though you should know it's a tiny smuggling compartment with no portholes. If a man your size were to lie in it, you'd touch wood on all sides of you."

Anders's shoulders twitched as if he'd barely held back a shudder. "Maybe I'll stay where I am then."

Isabela shrugged as she rolled away from him to curl up in a warm cocoon of red blanket. "Just mind you don't hog the covers."


	4. The Warden

A darkened porthole wasn't the best looking glass Isabela had ever had, but it was the most frequent. At least it let her see enough to confirm that her black corset fit as snugly as ever, her black mask covered just enough to satisfy the demands of an Antivan Satinalia, and her black hat's wide brim and bright-red plume were exactly what Varric would call for in an appropriately bawdy pirate epic. She had no idea what kind of bird could produce a feather of that size and color, but if she ever found one, she had every intention of thanking it. Possibly before she plucked out all its others.

Behind her own reflection, she could see Anders bend his head to his scratching quill. Reddish-blond hair pulled loose from its ponytail was in danger of being singed in the cabin's lone candle. Isabela sighed and turned to face him. "You're sure you won't come?"

He nodded, then jumped slightly as he flicked his hair out of the candle's flame. "Yes. I… don't feel comfortable in a crowd." The scratching finally stopped, and he glanced at her over his shoulder. His perusal prompted a hint of a smirk on his lips. "You look ridiculous, by the way."

Isabela posed with hands on hips, chin high, and breasts thrust out. "You're simply jealous of my hat."

A snort escaped the mage. "Yes, that must be it." The smirk faded much too quickly, reverting to the uncertain expression he seemed to put on whenever he remembered how much she had done for him and how very at her mercy he was. "If I gave you the coin, would you bring me more parchment?"

"Not if it's for that insufferable manifesto of yours."

"No." He looked down at the papers littering her table. "This is something else."

Isabela crossed the deck to stand behind him and lean one forearm across his shoulder. "Is that some kind of cipher?" She traced the unfamiliar swirls of a letter with one fingernail. "If you're writing dirty stories in a language I can't read, I'll be very cross."

"You needn't be. I haven't got Varric's literary designs."

"Well? What is it then?"

"It's…" Beneath her arm, she could feel his shoulders tense and release in a near-shrug. "They're stories… nursery rhymes my mother used to tell me. I haven't thought on them in years, but I just… I felt like remembering them, I suppose." He reached up to rub his knuckles across his brow. When he lowered it, he left a small smudge of ink. "Maybe from being on a ship. She had time for quite a few stories on the voyage to Ferelden."

As Isabela followed the lines of the runes, she pictured them carved into stone and was reminded of her brief docking at Tallo. "You really are from the Anderfels then?"

Anders looked at her over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. "Of course I am. How else would I have gotten the nickname?"

Shrugging, Isabela straightened and released her corset from where it had snagged on his shirt. "Nicknames come from all sorts of places. There's a one-legged man in Dairsmuid who knows me only as Nanny."

The quill resumed its scrawling progress across the page as Anders bent down again. "Please never tell me that story."

"Why don't you use your real name?" she asked.

"No one outside the Anderfels can pronounce it correctly. In the Circle, hearing it wrong all the time only reminded me that I wasn't at home." The quill paused for a moment as brown eyes glanced in her direction. "Why don't you use your real name?"

"I don't like being reminded of where I come from either." Isabela held out her hand. "Give me the coin, and I'll see what I can find. I make no promises."

Anders laid down the quill to poke open the tiny pouch he kept tied to his breeches. When he bent low over it, shielding it from her sight with his body, Isabela rolled her eyes. She'd already nicked it once just to confirm that it really was as empty as the pitifully tinny clinking suggested.

He straightened up and extended two coppers to her. "Thank you."

She snatched up the coins in her fist and made a final adjustment to her very fine hat before crossing to the cabin door. "Don't wait up," she called over her shoulder as she stepped into the corridor.

Their docking was far enough from the city that her boot steps rang out clearly over the sounds of muted revelry, but as she came up to the deck from below, thousands of torches dazzled her eyes. All of Antiva City had poured out into her streets and wrapped her in a filigree chain of light. The stars along the horizon were all but blotted out, grudgingly ceding to the earth-bound fire.

A wide grin crossed Isabela's face as she approached the gangplank and a night of drunken debauchery. Not even her first mate's usual scowl and crossed arms could dampen her spirits.

"Not coming into the city, Isaac?" she asked as she passed where he leaned on the rail.

"And leave your mage alone on the ship?" He spat over the rail. Fortunately all the dockworkers had already left to join the festivities. "Not bloody likely. We'd come back to find the whole thing ablaze."

Isabela breezed down the gangplank backward despite the heels of her boots and the spray-slick wood beneath them. "You worry too much."

"And you worry too little," he called after her. Already his voice sounded dim compared to the cacophony waiting to swallow her at the end of the pier.

"Well, aren't I the lucky one that I have you then?" she shouted back through cupped hands. Sweeping off her hat, she offered him a florid bow, which received only a rude gesture in return. She grinned, then replaced her hat and sauntered in among the ragged edges of the crowd.

By the time she'd crossed two streets, the clumps of people celebrating near the docks had turned into a veritable press of sweaty bodies. Isabela squeezed her way through, alternately groping and being groped in turn. She moved with the tide as they parted around the revelers already passed out in the gutters. On every side of her were faces flushed red with drink beneath everything from simple masks to elaborate headdresses painted to represent the old gods. She passed more than one Flemeth and actually had to look twice at a man who bowed to her and declared himself the king of Ferelden. She allowed him a long kiss and a chance to paw her corset simply for the sake of the uncanny resemblance. As she slipped away, she grinned again, wondering if Maric had ever made it to Antiva.

After the time it usually took her to travel from one end of the city to the other and halfway back again, she slid out of the crowd to push through the door of her favorite portside tavern. The noise outside in the open air had been raucous; inside it was nearly deafening. Instead of the drunken bonhomie of the streets, the tavern interior choked thick with snarls and shouts. The moment Isabela stepped inside a sudden surge back from the tavern's patrons nearly knocked her stumbling out again. Gritting her teeth, she pushed back, sidestepping and shoving and jabbing sensitive places when she had to.

When she finally reached the center of the barroom floor with corset askew, sweat-dampened hair, and bedraggled plume, she had no good humor left to spare for the tavern bouncer about to split the skull of one of her crew with a solid-looking mace. She climbed atop the nearest table and leapt onto the man's back, knocking him to the ground. He went down sprawling, the mace sliding from his hand. Before he could flip over and pin her down, she'd pulled both daggers and held them crossed against the back of his neck. At the feel of steel on bare skin, he went still beneath her.

Keeping one dagger in place, she dropped the other into its scabbard, then raised two fingers of her free hand to her lips. At her shrill fall-in whistle, the man she'd saved, Rolan, looked up from the other bouncer he'd knocked to the ground. Narrow eyes widened as he recognized the face beneath her mask and hat, and the bulky man straightened and laced his hands behind his back. Tinker, another of the men she'd picked up on her last stop at Llomerryn, staggered over to stand beside him. Blood still poured freely from his nose. Then to Isabela's surprise, the skinny helmsman Jates wriggled free of the crowd to join them.

With the fight's end, the loudest of the shouting died down to grumbling as the spectators turned back to their drinks. The tavern keeper scurried out from behind the safety of the bar, rushing to help her to her feet.

"Capitán Isabela," he exhaled in a breathless rush as he attempted to wipe nonexistent dust from her corset with a rag. "I am grateful for your timely intervention." The bouncer she'd straddled pushed to his feet and shot her a baleful glare before the keeper shooed him away.

"This isn't the kind of welcome my crew usually gets here, Armando," Isabela replied, sheathing her other dagger.

"_Lo siento, capitán_." Armando shook his head and sighed as he pushed back his graying hair with one hand. "I had no desire to cause such an incident. I merely–"

"He tried to throw us out, Captain," Rolan interrupted. Isabela turned to the big man and caught the sneer he directed at Armando. "Said our coin's no good here anymore."

Isabela turned back to the cringing tavern keeper. "That's hardly the way to repay years of loyal patronage."

The small man hunched his shoulders and spread his hands wide in apology. "It is not my wish, _capitán_, I assure you. But the templars… they come around more and more."

A chill pricked Isabela's spine. The speed with which rumor sailed across Rialto Bay was practically a proverb, but she hadn't expected trouble so soon, even if anyone watching from the docks at Ayesleigh had seen her take Anders on or if any of the crew of the ship with the boar flag had made it to shore.

But the cold thawed as soon as Armando went on. "Your man," he said with a slight nod toward Rolan, "he speaks perhaps too freely of your business." The tavern keeper leaned closer to Isabela and added in a low voice, "Your business with the lyrium trade."

Isabela couldn't deny to herself that her laugh was mostly relief. "Lyrium? That's what this is about? The templars have turned a blind eye to smuggling since the first of them pulled on a skirt."

Armando craned his neck to look behind her before he spoke again. "No longer, _capitán_. Since the incident in Kirkwall, all have become suspect. The templars are given more freedoms in their search for apostates. And they extend their searches to other, less troublesome crimes."

Isabela sighed. Then she took off her hat and sighed again as she attempted to fluff her poor plume. Any other night she might have pressed the point, but this was her only night in Antiva City during Satinalia, and she'd be damned before she'd spend it arguing the loopholes of Chantry law with a tavern keeper.

Pulling the pouch of gold from her belt, she turned and tossed it to Rolan. "Go on to the Beggar's Cup. Drinks are on me."

"Captain," Rolan grumbled in protest, though he caught the pouch all the same, "you're really going to let this weasel run us out?" Thick, dark eyebrows came down in a glare that sent Armando shuffling back a step.

Isabela placed her hands on her hips. "You want to waste time talking about it with him and his muscle, or are you going to take my coin and find yourself pleasanter company?"

Rolan's scowl didn't change, but he bounced the pouch in his hand. Apparently satisfied with the jingling of the sovereigns inside, he nodded once, then jerked his head toward the door. Tinker and Jates followed him out; the helmsman offered her an apologetic bob of his head as he passed.

"And try to hold back on the gossip, ladies!" she called after them. She shook her head as she replaced her hat, then turned back to Armando. "Satisfied?"

The little man cringed even more, his head practically disappearing between his shoulders. "I'm afraid, _capitán_, that I must request…" He quailed for a moment, then seemed to rally his strength to stand straighter. "I must ask for your departure as well, _capitán_. With the greatest respect."

Isabela smiled as she shifted her hands from her hips to rest on the hilts of her daggers. "Sorry, Armando, but I'm here to meet some friends in your back room." As if on cue, she noticed a shadow detach from the wall and slink through the crowd in her direction.

"I deeply regret it, _capitán_, but I must insist that you and your friends…" Armando trailed off as a figure appeared almost out of nowhere to slip an arm around her waist.

"Ah, _bella mia_," a silky voice purred in her ear. Isabela's smile stretched to a grin at the scent of Antivan leather. "I have been bereft without you."

Isabela leaned into the embrace, letting her fingers slide through blonde hair before flicking one pointed ear. Zevran chuckled, his amber eyes lit with mischief from behind a mask festooned with black feathers. He kissed her once on each cheek, and the movement distracted from the way he casually loosened the laces of his shirt. As he turned back to Armando, his collar fell open a little wider to reveal the end of an inked pattern that swirled down his chest. The tavern keeper's eyes were drawn to the tattoo; they immediately snapped back to the black feathers on Zevran's mask, then went wide.

"Is there some problem?" Zevran asked.

"No, _maestro_." Armando very nearly bowed as he backed another step away. "There is no problem."

"I am delighted to hear it." Zevran's grip lowered to squeeze Isabela's arse before it rose to the small of her back and began pushing her toward the back of the tavern. "Come, _querida_. I have found us a quiet table in a dark corner where we can become properly reacquainted."

As they passed out of Armando's earshot, Isabela ducked her head closer to Zevran, though it put her in danger of losing an eye to a sharp quill on his mask. "You enjoy doing that, don't you?"

"I am a man of numerous and varied pleasures, Bela," he replied. "You know this as well as any." A wide grin shifted the tattoos on his face. "But yes. It is a joy to be back in a part of the world where I am known to be wicked and dangerous."

The two of them snaked easily through the drunk patrons who'd resumed celebrating in earnest. With a twinge of regret for the excellent brandy Armando would probably be too scared to bring them (and for the pair of dark-haired men who were leaning on the bar and watching her walk away with appreciation), Isabela let Zevran lead her through the dark-red curtains that separated the back room from the tavern floor.

A small fire and a pair of wall sconces showed the room's only occupant sitting at a small square table. Unlike Zevran's elaborate confection of a mask, Kallian wore a simple strip of brown leather with holes cut for her gray eyes. It matched the vest that fastened snugly across her breasts and was a close complement for the long brown braid that lay over one shoulder. And unlike Zevran, whose inevitable weapons even Isabela hadn't spotted, Kallian displayed her daggers openly on the table, a challenge to anyone thinking a lone female elf was easy prey.

As they entered, one of Kallian's eyebrows lifted from behind the mask. "Everything all right?"

Zevran slipped away from Isabela to take the chair beside Kallian, hooking an ankle around one of the table legs to scoot closer. "A bit of a misunderstanding with the barkeep, but it was nothing I could not handle."

Isabela tossed her hat onto the table and dropped into the chair opposite the two elves. "What would we do without him to come to our rescue?"

"Get along quite well, I imagine," Kallian responded in a dry voice.

"You wound me, _amora_." Zevran slid still closer and placed a slow kiss along Kallian's bare shoulder. "I may have to arrange for a suitable punishment." Despite Kallian's serious expression, a faint pink flush spread across her pale skin.

Grinning, Isabela leaned back in her chair and propped her crossed ankles on the edge of the table. "He's in a rare mood. I take it you've been enjoying yourselves?"

"It has been a Satinalia fit for the songs of bards," Zevran declared, throwing one of his arms wide. "Bloodshed, daring escapes, passionate love under the stars."

"Hiding in tannery vats until we both reeked of uncured leather," Kallian added as she turned to face him.

"My very favorite part," Zevran murmured. He leaned toward his lover until their lips nearly touched, and a long moment passed before Kallian seemed to recall they were not alone. When she looked back to Isabela, the flush had deepened to downright rosy.

"I, for one, will not be sorry to take ship."

"Where are we headed?" Isabela asked.

"Denerim."

Zevran clucked his tongue as he shook his head. "She complains of the smells of fish and leather, yet she wishes nothing more than to return to the land of wet dogs."

"There's no accounting for taste," Isabela said. "I'm happy to give you passage, but my cabin's a bit crowded at the moment. With someone of your acquaintance actually."

"Who?" Kallian asked.

"A mage named Anders. He was one of yours once, wasn't he?"

Those sharp gray eyes suddenly had Isabela feeling very much like easy prey. "Anders? Anders is on your ship?"

Before Isabela could form an answer, Kallian shot up from her chair, snatched up her daggers, and stalked to the entrance, nearly ripping apart the curtains as she passed through. "Where are you going?" Isabela called after her. Across from her Zevran got to his feet as well and Isabela followed suit, only remembering at the last moment to collect her hat. "Where is she going?" she asked him as they hurried out into the tavern.

"It is this Anders that we have been tracking," he replied. All levity had left him, and Isabela felt another chill creep up the back of her neck.

"What is she going to do when she finds him?"

Zevran shrugged as they stepped out into the cool night air still thick with voices. Kallian was already lost to the crowds. "Exert her authority as Warden-Commander, I presume."

"Warden-Commander?" This time when someone tried to grab her breast, Isabela shoved him away. "Didn't she give that title to Howe?"

"In name and duties, perhaps. We still receive reports from him on the various activities of the Wardens. He had reported this mage to be in Kirkwall, and I saw him there myself not long after."

"You were in Kirkwall?"

"Briefly. Kallian had reason to explore the Deep Roads there." Zevran deflected an admirer of his own by once again baring the Crow tattoo on his chest. Even stumbling drunk, the man took one look and dashed away to a nearby alley, probably to piss himself. "While I was in the city, I had a minor skirmish with some Crows, but fortunately I was able to convince the Champion to assist me."

Isabela nearly stopped in her tracks, assaulted by memories of a very different city. "You saw Hawke?"

"I did indeed." Amber eyes glanced at her from behind a nest of feathers. "She is quite a woman, this Hawke."

"Yes," Isabela agreed, keeping her own eyes fixed on where the harbor and her ship awaited them. "She is."

As they broke through to the edges of the crowd, they spotted Kallian still stalking forward like she had an archdemon on her tail. Or like she was hunting one. Without speaking, Isabela and Zevran broke into a jog and caught the shorter-legged woman just as she started up the gangplank.

A familiar figure loomed at the top, his drawn cutlass catching the torchlight from the city. "It's us, Isaac," Isabela called just before Kallian shouldered past him.

"Everything all right?" he asked as Isabela and Zevran followed.

"Do not be alarmed, my friend," Zevran replied over his shoulder. "Just an opportunity for some pointed words between former comrades."

Isabela heard Isaac snort behind her. Remembering Armando's words about the templars, she found herself grateful for her first mate's paranoia. She resolved not to leave Anders alone in port again.

Assuming, of course, he survived whatever Kallian had in mind for him, which seemed less likely as the elf slammed open the door to Isabela's cabin. Over Kallian's shoulder, Isabela saw Anders shoot to his feet, knocking the chair to the deck. He started to back away with his palms up before him, but his step faltered as he narrowed his eyes. Peering at the masked woman before him, he half-lowered his hands.

"Commander?" Whatever he saw in her face had him scrambling backward again.

"What have you done?" Kallian spat. She stripped the mask from her face, leaving tendrils of brown hair floating across her forehead.

Anders licked his lips as his back hit wooden planking. "I… there was no other way. The mages in that city–"

Before any of them could react, Kallian's fist snapped his head to the side. "Shut up, Anders. I want to talk to Justice."

When Anders turned back, blood trickled from his lip. "He can hear you, Commander. We're the same person now."

"Then let him speak for you," Kallian demanded, hands still curled into fists.

After a moment's hesitation, Anders closed his eyes. Faint cracks of light perforated his skin, and Isabela felt the hair on the back of her neck stir. The eyes Justice opened glowed blue, and Zevran stepped forward to stand beside his lover, one hand on the dagger Isabela could now see peeking from the small of his back.

"I am here, Commander," a voice deeper than Anders's intoned.

"What have you done to him, demon?"

A thin line creased the space between glowing eyes, as though Justice felt an irritating sting. "I am no demon."

Kallian stepped forward, one finger jabbing at Anders's chest, heedless of the power crackling across his skin. "Don't lie to me. I heard you say it yourself. You once said that the only difference between a spirit and a demon was that a demon desired to possess a mortal."

Justice frowned at the small elf in front of him before finding an answer. "Anders was a willing host."

Kallian threw up her hands. "Of course he was. He has more heart than brains. But how did you talk him into this? What did you hope to gain? You wanted to experience pleasures of the flesh for yourself, is that it?"

At any moment, Isabela expected that the spirit would roar and rage and possibly blast them all to the Void, but he just continued to look back at her with that strange, confused little frown. Finally his eyes fluttered shut and his head jerked to one side. His hands came up in supplication as Anders's pleading brown eyes reopened.

"Commander, it wasn't like that. He's not like that."

Another fist lashed out, catching Anders square across the jaw with a resounding crack. "Shut your damn mouth, Anders!" As Anders bent over and cradled his cheek, Kallian paced the small cabin, shaking out her hand. "You stupid fucking _shem_!"

Before Isabela could consider stepping in, Zevran's hand wrapped around her upper arm. "Perhaps we should leave them be," he murmured. "This is liable to take some time."

She let him usher her out of the cabin, but resisted at the door frame, calling back, "Don't blow up my ship!"

Zevran urged her on and they hustled up to the deck, then slowed their pace once they had escaped the sound of raised voices. The wind bit deeper away from the crowds, sharp enough to raise goose bumps and tease the furled sails with the promise of fulfillment. Isabela went to the rail, where she breathed in the cool air perfumed with torch smoke and salt and gazed down into the murky waters of the bay.

"If you tell me you two had sex with Hawke without me, I'm going to throw myself overboard."

Zevran chuckled beside her. "There is no need for such a display, Bela. I had attempted to evaluate her openness to such a plan—simply for curiosity's sake, you understand—but one of her companions objected rather strenuously with threats upon my person."

Isabela smiled as she pulled off her hat. "A Tevinter elf with glowing tattoos?" The hat slipped from her fingers to drop to the deck. She untied her mask and let it fall on top of what remained of the stringy red feather.

"The man himself." With a sad shake of his head, Zevran removed his own mask with more delicacy. Long fingers caressed the sweep of black feathers over one eyehole. "Such a shame, too. He was also quite a specimen."

"Mmm… those eyes."

"And that voice," Zevran agreed. "By coincidence, we ran into them again some months ago in a small inn outside of Orlais. I felt compelled to make certain suggestions to your Champion simply to get him to growl at me." A sigh escaped him as he looked out over the thin stretch of water separating them from his beloved city. "Sadly that night also ended with discussions much less pleasant. It was then we confirmed our suspicions that this Anders was involved in the incident of the Chantry. We have been seeking him since."

"What will she do? I promised him he'd be safe aboard my ship."

Zevran shrugged again, as he had outside the tavern. "She will do what she feels she must."

They lapsed into silence, something the pair of them very rarely did unless their mouths were otherwise occupied. But when Isabela glanced at Zevran, his gaze was locked upon the city. Whatever agreement he and Kallian had worked out with the Crows, it only allowed them to spend one week in Antiva each year. She knew he was already counting the days until he could return. She herself had hoped to help him bid the city farewell in high style; now the relative stillness of the deck only irritated her. Spending a night on a ship at port seemed like a waste of both ship and port.

The din from the city faded as the sliver of moon neared the end of its descent. The slap of ripples against the hull crept back into her ears, somewhat comforting in its reminder that shallow as it was, there was seawater beneath her boots. When the hatch from below decks cracked against the timber, the two rogues startled out of their respective reveries, then shared a subdued smirk at the Warden's characteristic lack of subtlety.

"Everyone still in one piece?" Isabela asked as Kallian joined them.

"Yes," the elf sighed, leaning back against the rail. "That's part of the problem." She crossed her arms as she squinted up into the darkness beyond the main mast's lantern. "How soon can we sail?"

"Morning tide, just after dawn. Assuming my crew's in any shape to sail."

"Get them in shape."

Isabela's hands went to her hips at the snap of someone else's command on her ship, but she simply asked, "Do we still make for Denerim?"

"Yes."

"Will you stay in my cabin?" Isabela asked. It was Satinalia, after all. Perhaps they could still redeem some part of the night. "It'll be tight, but I'm sure we could all squeeze in."

Her heart (or, more accurately, her libido) sank as Kallian shook her head. "Anders has too many people in his head as it is. Let's not add any more." Zevran's lips pulled down into a pout, and Isabela knew her crestfallen expression was a match for his. Kallian looked back and forth between them, then snorted. "We'll make it up to you."

"You'd better."

With a theatrical sigh, Zevran wrapped his arms around Kallian's waist. "And so it is the aft cabin for us."

"At least you're both elves," Isabela observed.

"Very true," he agreed. Already his voice was muffled by the smooth skin of Kallian's neck, and her flush made a swift reappearance. "Until morning, lovely Bela."

She watched them saunter off, wrapped in each other, a feeling somewhere between wistful and annoyed further souring her mood. A few hours of dark remained, but her enthusiasm had lost its shape somewhere around the same time as her crushed hat. Kneeling down, she cradled the poor thing in her arms, before rising to clomp across the deck with no great subtlety herself.

Before she reached her cabin, she was of half a mind to vent her frustration on the root cause of her ruined evening, but once she saw him hunched on her bunk with his hands buried in his hair, she could only find pity for the stupid git. She leaned against the table and traded her hat for the bottle of whiskey she'd left out with the hope that Anders would drink the staff out of his arse. By the amount of liquid left in the bottle, Justice liked his host uptight and twitching at every creak of the rigging.

"Are you all right?" she asked, wiping a stray drop of whiskey from her lips.

"It's just a split lip," he muttered.

Some instinct drove her to set down the bottle and reach across to grip his chin instead. Turning his face to the candle, she spotted the swollen cut still dark with dried blood. "Why haven't you healed it?" Anders had no response but to drop his eyes from her gaze. She pinched the skin of his jaw before releasing him. "Heal it."

The candle flickered, and a faint glow pierced the momentary darkness. Isabela took another drink from the bottle, then extended it to Anders. He started at it with dull eyes before reaching out. He took what could barely be called a sip before letting the bottle dangle between his knees.

"What's she going to do to you?" Isabela asked.

"She wants me to meet a friend of hers. Someone she thinks might be able to help me."

"Help you do what exactly?"

"Separate from Justice."

Isabela raised an eyebrow and took back the bottle before Anders forgot it entirely and let it crash to the deck. "Is that possible?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. I looked into it once, but I never… I didn't find anything. Nothing that wouldn't kill me anyway."

"If you can separate from him… do you want to?"

"I don't know." The speed with which Anders shot to his feet left Isabela choking on whiskey. "I don't… I don't even know who I am separate from him," he continued, beginning to pace the narrow passage between the hull and the door. "I'm _not_ separate from him. I don't know where I end and he begins. How do I split that?"

"But you've agreed to meet this friend?"

"Yes." Anders stopped pacing as abruptly as he'd started. "The Commander gave me a choice. If we won't separate or can't…" His lips twisted in a grimace. "She's going to send me back to Amaranthine. Confine me to the Vigil under Howe's supervision."

"And if you do separate?" Isabela asked.

"Then I'm still a Grey Warden." When he turned his face to her, his grimace had shifted to a wry smile devoid of humor. "She reminded me of the Joining oath. 'The duty that cannot be forsworn.'"

"What's the difference then?"

Puffing out his lips in a sigh, the mage flopped back across her bunk and flung an arm over his eyes. "If I'm… just me, I'll be a full Grey Warden. I'll be permitted to leave the compound, participate in missions." The chuckle that escaped him sounded hoarse and low in his throat. "I'll be supervised then too, of course."

Isabela tapped her fingernails against the table, but the small motion did little to soothe the squirming discomfort in her gut. "Supervised is better than dead," she rationalized. "Or Tranquil. She could dump you on the templars, you know."

"I know," Anders sighed. "I just…" He curled over on his side, turning his back to her. "It doesn't matter. It's done."

The steady rise and fall of his breathing couldn't hide the tension in his shoulders. With a sigh of her own, Isabela dropped onto the bunk and leaned against his back, stretching her boots out on the deck. "I didn't get your parchment," she confessed. "And I may have given your coppers to the crew to spend on drink and whores."

After a moment's silence, his laughter stammered out in a fit of exhaustion-giddy giggles that shook them both. He reached up to grab a handful of her hair, then twisted his fingers to give it a yank. "I knew I could count on you."

She jabbed her elbow into his spine, then scooted to lie with her back pressed against his. The candle burned down slowly, not sputtering out until shouts and off-key singing above heralded the return of the first of the crew.


	5. The Meeting

The Gnawed Noble had a reputation for being one of the more respectable taverns in Denerim. Which meant, of course, that its back room was nearly as dull as a Chantry cloister without even offering the entertainment of a dozen virgin sisters to try and corrupt. Isabela let out a heavy sigh, scattering sawdust across the table from where she'd been carving naughty pictures with her belt knife.

"If I'd known they were going to take this long, I would have insisted on holing up at The Pearl instead."

Anders glanced at her from the close watch he'd been keeping on the fire. Isaac's cloak still draped across his shoulders—and wasn't she going to get an earful from her first mate about borrowing it without asking—but Kallian had demanded Anders go hooded into the city.

"As much fun as 'holing up' at The Pearl would have been, you're too well known there," the mage replied. "We're supposed to be keeping out of sight." He pulled the cloak more tightly around himself. "At least it's quiet here. The Pearl's too loud."

"You didn't used to mind the noise," Isabela pointed out. "Besides, The Pearl is where we met, darling. Surely that gives it sentimental value."

Anders cocked his head to the side, brow furrowed in confusion like Dalish tattoos had suddenly sprouted across her face. "What?" she asked.

"I'm trying to reconcile the concepts of _you _and _sentiment_," the mage answered. After another long moment of staring, he shook his head. "No. Can't do it."

Isabela grinned and opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment, the door opened and Zevran slipped inside. He glanced back into the corridor—though Isabela had the feeling it was more out of habit than any actual threat of pursuit—then closed the door silently behind him.

"I apologize for the delay, my friends. We are ready for you now."

"Finally," Isabela sighed as she rose from her seat. She'd taken two steps toward Zevran before she noticed Anders hadn't moved from his place before the fire. He watched Zevran through narrowed eyes, but the assassin only raised an eyebrow.

"Where are we going?" Anders asked.

"To the palace." Even with the answer given, neither man moved to go. In the pit of her stomach, Isabela felt that flutter that always accompanied a stray burst of cooler air knifing through a stifling day, setting the sails to flapping in a contrary wind before the thunderheads had even gathered. For the first time, she wondered what Anders knew of Zevran, what knowledge of him Justice might now access, what comment or action the spirit might take against one whose hands had been painted with so many coats of blood.

"It's been a while since I've seen the king," Isabela said into the silence. "It's been an age since I made him blush."

"You will not be seeing the king," Zevran replied, but his eyes didn't leave Anders. "Or more to the point, he will not be seeing you."

Isabela's hands went to her hips. "Since when am I not good enough to see the king?"

"It's not you," Anders said quietly. His gaze dipped to the thick carpet at his feet, and like a string had been cut, Zevran's posture shifted, his shoulders lowering, his stance dropping from the balls of his feet.

"Some of the royalty in the Free Marches would dislike the king of Ferelden harboring a known fugitive," he said, turning to Isabela. "If I had my way, he would not know you are here at all, but Kallian will not willfully deceive him." Reaching back with one hand, he pushed the door open again, and his other hand gestured with the most courteous kind of command that it was past time to go.

This time Anders didn't hesitate, crossing the room and stepping out into the corridor with his eyes still downcast. Zevran followed almost at his elbow, which forced Isabela to take up the rear, a position she might have enjoyed quite a bit more if both men hadn't been wearing loose-cut cloaks that extended well past mid-thigh. They moved without speaking through the crowded but sedate main room and out into the cold Ferelden night. The wind stripped Isabela's skin of the fire's warmth, and she clutched her own cloak more tightly. An aura of light surrounded the pale rising moon as though even her breath clouded in the crisp air.

"And how is our young king?" she asked. The two men might have no qualms about passing the time in silence, but she needed a distraction from the chill.

"Not quite so young, but passably well for one with such great burdens," Zevran replied over his shoulder. "On a near constant basis, he is confronted with the twin hardships of a life of rich luxury and a happy marriage to a beautiful woman."

"Poor man," Isabela snorted. "I imagine he was suitably disappointed he won't be graced with my presence?"

"_Bella mia_, is there any who would not feel the pain of such a loss?"

"His wife, probably."

Zevran laughed, the sound bright in the still air of the empty marketplace. Any watching eyes or listening ears would think such an easy sound could come only from three city dwellers hurrying to their hearths and homes. "Indeed. Be grateful the queen is in the Southern Reaches with the prince. She has become less tolerant of piracy of late."

"Anora wouldn't actually have me arrested?" Isabela asked, incredulous. The queen might appear nothing but righteous dignity personified in court, but that proper mask hid a practical streak of a color much closer to the farmer her father was reported to have been. She would not associate too closely with assassins or smugglers, but neither would she ever doubt their necessity.

"No," Zevran agreed, "but she would feel the need to make a show of it. I do not think you would like being chased all the way back to your ship."

"That depends on who's doing the chasing."

Zevran laughed again as they entered a circle of torchlight where a member of the city guard had decided to make his watch. He nodded as if the man were an often-passed acquaintance and continued the conversation without pause as they slid back into the dark. "Quite so. Have you ever told your friend here of the quick departure we were forced to make from Seere those many years ago?"

Isabela followed his lead, swapping stories and jokes as they wandered through the city, seemingly at their ease. Their efforts were somewhat hampered by Anders's silence and his general air of a man being led to the gallows. Or a mage being led to the Gallows. As they approached the outer wall of the palace, their practiced banter slowed. Zevran led them to a little used gate on the southern side, and when he nodded to the royal guards, they nodded back and made no move to bar their entrance.

Once inside, the pretense of sedateness was abandoned. Zevran moved quickly through the quiet halls, glancing down side corridors and navigating a maze of turns with the ease of familiarity. Instead of leading them to one of the many conference chambers as Isabela had expected, he guided them to a narrow stone staircase that led to the permanent staff's residences.

"If this is all so secretive, why didn't your contact just meet us at the tavern?" Isabela asked as they passed through a long hall of wooden doors. Some stood open, revealing pairs and trios of chambermaids giggling and gossiping as they finally sat down to darn their own clothes instead of embroidering tablecloths.

Zevran snorted. "She would say she is too old to go gallivanting about the city after dark has fallen." Golden eyes looked sideways at her. "You must promise me to never grow old, Bela. Were the day to come when I could not tempt you from your warm fireside with tales of fortune and adventure, I believe it would break my heart."

Isabela shivered in mock despair. "Perish the thought. I'd rather be dead."

Anders shook his head and spoke for the first time since they'd left the tavern. "You mean that, don't you?"

"Of course, I do," she replied. "I suppose you'd prefer to die in bed while cuddled under a dozen purring kittens?"

"That's not an option for all of us," Anders murmured with his eyes on his scuffed boots. Isabela frowned and glanced at Zevran. She was surprised to catch a pained expression crossing his face before he smoothed it away.

As they rounded a corner, the chatter of the servants' quarters gave way to silence. Only torches interrupted the stone wall they followed until they reached a lone door, larger than the others and carved with a garden of flowering vines. Zevran knocked, and after a moment of resumed quiet, the door creaked open. Kallian looked out, her eyes shadowed by the dimness of the corridor, then stepped aside to let them enter.

Inside was a large living chamber dominated by a bed carved with the same design as the door and warmed by a roaring fire. Thick woolen tapestries covered the walls with very little thought to decoration and a great deal to keeping out the stone's chill. A small, circular table, set with a tea service of all things, crowded close to the hearth. Four of the chairs surrounding it were wooden and empty, but the fifth held several padded cushions and an old woman with a short white ponytail. She faced the fire, her back to the travelers, sipping her tea. An elderly mabari dozed at her feet, but beneath the heavy lids, its eyes watched Kallian, and when she passed close to stand before the fire, its thick stub of a tail wagged.

Zevran walked forward without hesitation, stripping off his cloak and going to a nearby cabinet to rummage inside. When he produced a bottle of wine with a flourish, the old woman clucked her tongue, but as she turned to greet Isabela and Anders, she could not hide her smile.

"Forgive me for not rising," she said. "Old joints in the cold. I have only so many steps in me on days like this, and I'm forced to save them for crucial matters."

"Like finding the chamber pot?" Isabela asked, pulling off her own cloak and shaking out her hair.

The woman raised a thin eyebrow, but the amused tilt of her lips remained. "Crude but accurate." Her eyes trailed back toward the door, and the small smile faded away into deeper lines or worry. "Hello, Anders."

Isabela felt her own eyebrows rise as she glanced back at Anders. He still stood in front of the door, looking dumbstruck, half-poised to dart back into the corridor. "Enchanter Wynne?"

"Please close the door and sit down, Anders. I'd rather not have to crane my neck for this entire conversation." No part of Anders moved except his eyes, which shifted from the old woman to Kallian, until Wynne sighed with an air of impatience. "As you can plainly see, there are no templars here. I have earned that right through the king's trust, and I am temporarily extending that trust to you. Don't make me regret it."

Anders's eyes dragged back to her, then he pushed the door closed and walked over to sit stiffly in the chair beside her. As she took her own seat, Isabela watched him fiddle with the hem of his borrowed cloak, his eyes downcast. Zevran reached across the table to pour her a glass of wine, and she raised it to him in salute.

She took a long sip, then licked her lips. "You two know each other, I take it?"

After glancing at Anders, who made no attempt to respond, Wynne sighed again. "I taught him the fundamentals of healing. He had talent even then, and I'd hoped that the path of a healer would give him direction."

Between Kallian standing like a cross-armed statue in front of the fireplace and the old woman's sighs, the general air of disappointment pricked at Isabela's temper. "He had his own clinic in Kirkwall," she declared. "He saved more lives in Darktown than any of the city guards. Or the Chantry."

A sharp gaze met hers. "I don't doubt it," Wynne replied. "He has always thrown himself headlong into whatever captured his attention or desire, be it escaping the Tower or playing host to a spirit of the Fade."

Isabela opened her mouth to cut into the old witch, friend of Kallian and Zevran's or no, but Anders finally looked up with a bit of heat in his eyes. "You have never understood."

"I understand better than you suppose," Wynne retorted.

Anders rolled his eyes. "Spare me the story of your epiphany in the Circle Chantry. 'We must follow the path the Maker has set before us.' Isn't that the way the lecture goes? This from a woman who had her own child taken by the templars."

The old mage's lips thinned, but she took a deep breath through her nose and blew it out before replying. "I was referring to being a host," she said as she took up the tea pot and poured herself more. "I assure you that I understand it quite well." She sat back in her chair and took a sip before lowering the cup to her saucer and fixing him with a placid smile. "Or did you suppose you were the only mage with a spirit?"

Anders's dumbstruck expression had returned, and for a moment, he simply stared at the old woman. He turned to Zevran, but the assassin just shrugged from where he lounged in his chair, drinking his wine. Honey-colored eyes met Isabela's for a moment, but she could offer him nothing but a slight shake of her head. When he turned back to the old mage, her wrinkled face was a bit more smug than Isabela would have liked.

"How?" Anders asked in a hoarse voice.

"When the Circle was corrupted, I was struck down," Wynne stated in a matter-of-fact manner. "A spirit came out from the Fade to bring me back. It is she that has sustained me all these years." Her smug expression softened to something more wistful. "But it will not be for much longer, I think."

"Do not believe her, my friend," Zevran piped up. "She has been saying that for at least a decade."

"Zevran likes to claim that I will outlive you all. I will be sad on the day I prove him wrong." The old woman folded her hands in her lap and focused her pale eyes on Anders. "But there will be great consolation, for I will go to the Maker and my spirit will return to the Fade. She loves me as dearly as she has ever done, but she grows weary of being so confined."

The air around the old mage began to shimmer. At first Isabela thought it was nothing but the heat of the fire, but even the dim light could not hide the way the mage's eyes went dark. The shimmering in the air coalesced into black wisps, as if motes of the Fade danced around her head. "And what of you, brother?" she asked. The pitch of her voice had deepened in a way that Isabela was all too familiar with, but instead of harsh injunctions, the mage spoke with a gentler tone. "Do not you wish to return to our home?"

Fissures of blue light crackled across Anders's skin. "There is work for me here," Justice replied. "Injustice remains."

The other spirit shook her head. "As it has always done in this mortal land. Is that not the work of mortals to rectify?"

"They do not. They keep their eyes blind as they raise their hands to one another."

"Some perhaps. But others seek to aid, to comfort. Is not your host a healer of flesh as mine is?"

"He cannot heal the wounds that cover this land. They fester, gorged with infection. The diseased limbs must be cut away if the whole is to survive."

"You cut too deeply, brother. Lifeblood has been spilt which carried no taint of corruption." The spirit reached out with one of the old mage's hand to take one of Anders's from his lap. "A time comes to set aside the knife. Lay down your arms, brother. These battles are no longer yours."

"The righteous among them cannot win this battle alone."

Wynne's head turned to the side, and her brow furrowed. "Why do you doubt them? Have you not lived among them? Have you not seen their capacity for kindness, for compassion?"

Anders's lip curled. "For every one act of kindness, I have seen ten of cruelty."

"You do not mean that," the spirit replied softly. She laid her other hand along Anders's cheek, cradling his jaw with her fingertips. "You judge them harshly because this one has suffered. Mine remembers the times when he was locked away from light and laughter."

Justice stiffened, then turned Anders's face away from the comforting touch. "She should have intervened."

"You think that she did not?" the other spirit asked. "Even in the Tower that he so hated, there were those who cared for him. It was they who begged for clemency on his behalf. He was locked away, yes, but he still walks the Fade."

Justice turned back with a thin crease etched between Anders's eyebrows. "Yours spoke for mine?"

"And she was not alone," the other spirit confirmed. "Friends surround him still, if he only has eyes to see them."

The crease dug deeper with Justice's frown. "There were others who turned from him."

A sharp pang of guilt stabbed Isabela's gut, but the glowing eyes of Justice never turned on her, as she half-expected, and the gentle spirit shook Wynne's head again. "Are you certain he did not turn from them?"

In a movement that reminded Isabela much more of Anders, Justice lowered Anders's head to look down at the human hands resting idle in his lap. "I pulled him away. There was too much work to do." When he continued, it was in a voice more quiet than Isabela had ever heard him use. "When we were first joined, our path was clear. Now the way is shrouded."

"That is the way of these mortals, brother. They feel too much to stay pure to their purposes." The old mage's spirit lifted her hand again, this time to Anders's shoulder. "Even mine still clings to this world, to teach and to guide. But she knows I grow weak from carrying this mortal shell. Soon she will release me with a glad and thankful heart."

Justice did not raise his eyes. "I have no wish to abandon him."

"Not abandon. A parting of ways as must always come for those who are made of flesh," the other spirit said. "He will understand."

"I…" For the first time since Justice had burst out in front of her all those years ago in Kirkwall, Isabela heard him falter. "I am weary, sister."

Wynne's hand rose from his shoulder and came to rest on the crown of his head, as if in benediction. "Then rest, brother."

No sound broke the silence except for the pop of the wood in the fire and the mabari's muted snores. Isabela's eyes were riveted to the mages. The black wisps slowed their dancing and fell like dry leaves, fading into nothing before they touched table or carpet. Cracks of lightning receded, sputtered, and left nothing to mar Anders's skin but the lines of exhaustion and decades of fear. When Wynne moved her hand and he looked up, Isabela could see a damp sheen in his brown eyes, and she swallowed a lump in her throat.

"Can you do it?" he asked Wynne. "Do you know a way?"

This time the old mage's sigh held more sympathy than disappointment. "There is only one way to free a spirit from a mortal body."

Anders nodded and let his eyes drop. "How will you do it?"

"We have at our disposal one of the best poisoners in Thedas," Wynne said. "I suggest we take advantage."

Isabela frowned as Anders looked at Zevran and the assassin nodded in response. "I promise you, my friend, it will be painless."

Shooting forward in her seat, Isabela slammed her wine glass onto the table. "You're not all seriously sitting here planning how best to murder Anders?" Her glare darted from Zevran to the old woman, then she craned her neck to stare daggers at Kallian's back.

"I was ready to die in Kirkwall." Isabela whipped her head around at Anders's words, but he did not quail in the face of her baleful glower. "I'm still ready." She couldn't decide if the look in his eyes was offering forgiveness or asking it. "I won't be his prison."

For a moment, she was torn between screaming at him and crying into her cups like a homesick cabin boy, but Zevran's voice saved her from having to choose. "Ah, _somos tontos_. _Amora_, Wynne, I believe they do not yet grasp the full extent of our plan." Anders and Isabela turned as one to the smirking assassin. "The poison I have in mind has a most potent antidote. Administered quickly, it is almost always effective."

From the corner of her eye, Isabela saw Anders's mouth open long before words came out. "You… you're planning to bring me back?"

Kallian finally turned from contemplating the fire. "If I was going to kill you out of hand, I would have done it in Antiva," she announced.

Anders didn't seem to know which of them to look at. Eventually his gaze settled on Wynne. "Is that even possible? He was bound to a corpse once before. How do you know he'll be able to get free?"

"Kallian's told me of the magic that bound him to Kristoff," Wynne replied. "It held him here against his will. His bond with you was an agreement between you. I have no reason to think it will extend beyond your death."

Anders's eyes flitted among them all again before landing, this time on Kallian. "Why are you doing this? Why not just kill me? Or send me to the Deep Roads?"

A muscle in her jaw twitched, and her arms were still locked tight across her chest. "Ferelden needs Wardens," she clipped. As if sprung from a bow, she stalked to the chair that held her cloak and snatched it up. "Will tomorrow morning work for you?" she asked Wynne as she settled it around her shoulders.

The old mage blinked, seemingly as surprised by the Warden's sudden movement as the rest of them. "Yes, tomorrow morning will be fine."

"Then we'll leave you to your rest." Kallian marched to the door and pulled it open. "Get back to the ship," she ordered over her shoulder. "Zev, I'll be at my father's."

"As you say, _amora_," Zevran said, but the door had already closed behind her. He cleared his throat to break the awkward silence, then rose and offered Wynne a graceful bow. "Tomorrow then?"

She nodded and watched them gather their cloaks. When her eyes met Anders's, she smiled, though the furrows in her brow carved deep. "May the Maker guide us," she said.


	6. The Parting

_Author's note: Apologies for the delay and a hearty thank you to anyone who has stuck with this story. We're nearing the end and most of the rest is written, so future updates should be more frequent. (In other words, I want to get this bad boy posted before Mass Effect 3 comes out.)_

* * *

><p>Despite her usual demeanor and clothing, Isabela had some skill at avoiding notice. Nowhere near what Zevran was capable of, but enough to suffice when the occasion called for it. The planned death of a friend seemed like such an occasion.<p>

Leaning in a corner near the door, she watched as Zev and Wynne bustled about, setting out bottles and herbs and consulting in low voices. Anders sat in the middle of the bed and fiddled with the linens. The title Hero of Ferelden afforded Kallian her own guest suite in the royal palace, and they'd decided to use it for what they'd planned. Isabela nearly wondered aloud at what else that bed had been used for, but she couldn't bring herself to give voice to the jest. After glancing to where Kallian stood at the window, she looked back to the bed and noticed that Anders had removed his boots in some bizarre show of courtesy. At the sight of his stocking feet, she very nearly fled the room.

Anders's eyes were fixed on Zevran's measurements. "What you're using… what's it called?" he asked. Despite the fidgeting of his fingers and the twitching of his socks, he had his healer's voice, calm and professionally curious.

"_El viento del invierno_," Zevran replied. With steady hands, he lifted the point of a knife to the flask's mouth and a few grains of powder slid smoothly down the blade and into the potion. "Winter's Wind."

"I've never heard of it."

"I'd be surprised if you had. It is a recipe rather jealously guarded by the Crows."

"And it… how does it work?"

"I cannot speak to the more clinical effects. I am not learned in the healing arts." Zevran's eyes flicked up for a moment to rest on the lines creasing the edges of Anders's mouth and the space between his eyebrows. "You will feel a chill," the assassin offered. "Then you will feel nothing at all."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Anders said with forced cheer. His attempt at a smile curdled Isabela's stomach.

Buried deep in her memory was the cold, brittle laugh of the man who had killed her husband, but when Zevran answered, his voice held a quiet warmth. "Not bad at all, my friend," he said.

The snap of a book shutting jerked Isabela's attention back to Wynne. The old mage laid the thick volume she'd been consulting on the table and returned to the bedside opposite Zevran. "Are we ready?" she asked.

When the assassin nodded, she looked down at the man sitting between them. Her expression softened; when she spoke, her voice was all calm compassion, the voice of a healer and teacher, one much more practiced in kindness than Zev's. "If you wish to say anything to Justice, now is the time," she murmured to Anders.

Anders sat up straighter in the bed, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin. "We've said our good-byes. I'm ready."

Wynne nodded to Zevran, and the elf handed the flask to Anders. The liquid inside was white as milk but had no hint of froth on the surface. Even though Zevran had mixed the potion in the fire-warmed room, the glass beaded with condensation.

"So now I just drink and…?" Anders's dry voice trailed off, and Wynne laid her hand upon his shoulder.

"And your work will be done," she said. "You must leave the rest to us."

Anders managed a slightly cockier smile, and he raised the flask in salute. "Cheers then." He drained the potion in one long swallow, then handed the empty flask back to Zevran, who laid it on the bedside table without the smallest clink to break the new silence.

"I feel silly just sitting here, waiting," Anders said after a long moment. For the first time since Isabela had stepped into the room, his honey-colored eyes found her. His lips parted to speak again, but his brow suddenly furrowed. Her heart pounded in her chest and she took a step toward him as a shiver raced down his spine. His eyes tracked her movement, and he tried to smile with chattering teeth. "Is it cold in here, or is it just me?" he asked.

Before she could think of a reply, his eyes rolled back and he slumped into Zevran's waiting arms. Zevran laid his head down among the pillows, doing nothing to stop the trembling that engulfed the mage's body. The rest of them stood silent, motionless, as Anders's shuddering pants filled the room. With each breath the sound became more rasping and desperate. Eventually the tremors slowed as his body abandoned everything but the struggle for air.

Silence began to fill the space between the choking gasps. Each time the emptiness grew longer until it stretched in an agony of passing seconds that only ended with the painful rattle that Isabela both dreaded and longed to hear. She had lived a life full of death, but it had always been a death of motion and violence, a death at the end of a blade accompanied by blood and screaming and adrenaline. This was cold and passionless, and she wanted to rage at Wynne and Zevran for simply standing there watching. She wanted to clap her hands over her ears to hide from the awful rasps. She wanted to shout herself hoarse to fill the terrible silence.

Zevran's eyes fell on her, and the question that was twisting her insides must have shown on her face because he nodded his head—it was almost over. The next breath did not rattle in Anders's throat but escaped in a hiccupy cough. The old mage and the assassin leaned over him, and from the corner of her eye, Isabela saw Kallian take a step forward. Every gaze in the room strained toward the bed and the still figure that released a quick series of gasps. When silence fell again, it stretched on unbroken.

And yet Wynne and Zevran still stood, leaning. They didn't rush around, they didn't touch the body, they did nothing. Finally Isabela couldn't hold back the anger born of fear and helplessness.

"What are you waiting for?" she snapped.

As the last word left her mouth, sparks of blue lightning flickered across Anders's fingertips. They ghosted up his arms, and each fork divided, then divided again, and again, skating and sliding across his skin and clothes until a web of blue light encased the body. The strands pulled taut, stretching out, then snapped back. The glow coalesced around Anders's middle, then strained upward. Anders's body followed as if the glow were a rope pulling him toward the ceiling. When nothing but his toes and the top of his head touched the bed, the glow suddenly broke free with an almost audible pop. Anders slumped back to the bed, and the air above him began to ripple and flex. The blue light shot up, and the moment its edge touched the ripples, it was caught up like a ribbon in a riptide. Isabela watched as it snaked through an unseen hole until she was blinded by a bright flash. When the flash faded, she blinked up at nothing but stone and wooden ceiling beams.

"For that," Wynne replied. She nodded to Zevran, and he pushed another flask between Anders's slack lips. His other hand tilted the mage's head back, then massaged his throat once the flask was drained.

"Step back a moment," Wynne ordered. When Zevran was balanced with one knee on the mattress, the old mage's hands ignited with the pale glow of a healing spell. She splayed her fingers across Anders's chest, and instead of releasing the magic in a slow wave, she forced it out in a strong pulse. Anders jerked on the bed, once and then again as Wynne let loose another pulse. Her fingertips pressed against his throat, and with a satisfied nod, she looked up at Zevran.

"Now give him breath, as I showed you."

The assassin bent down, pressing his mouth down over the other man's. From what Isabela knew of the Chant (admittedly not much), the Maker cared little for any of them and even less for mages, if such a being even existed. But she'd seen enough of the Fade and spirits to believe the First Children real, and under her breath she muttered a tirade directed at Justice, half-berating the spirit and half-entreating him to intervene. She willed Anders to respond, to reach up and wrap his arms around the elf and pull him down for a lingering kiss before ending it with a laugh.

Instead the mage's hand twitched feebly. His gasp was half-swallowed by Zevran, who leaned back just in time to avoid Anders flopping bonelessly to the edge of the bed.

Wynne extended her hand. "The basin," she said to Zevran.

He handed a bucket over the bed a moment before Anders expelled a gush of bloody froth and bile. Then he had to dive across the mattress and wrap an arm around Anders's chest to keep him from slipping down to the floor.

"Better out than in, my friend," he exclaimed cheerfully, patting Anders on the back.

"This is likely to go on for some time," Wynne said. Anders groaned weakly from the bed, but the older mage was looking at Kallian. "If you have other business you'd like to attend to…"

When Isabela looked toward the window, she saw the warrior turn away from the scene on the bed with a rigid jaw. For the moment she lived up to the title of Grey Warden, her face the color of slate. At the mage's words, she strode to the door with quick strides and fumbled with the knob before breaking out into the corridor. With another glance toward the retching figure on the bed, Isabela followed.

She found the Warden-Commander, Hero of Ferelden, slumped in a window seat at the end of the corridor. Her pale cheek pressed against the cool glass that fogged with each breath. Isabela couldn't suppress a smirk as she took up a spot leaning against the near wall and noted that Kallian was currently resting her head against the stained glass depiction of Calenhad's crotch. The winter sun shone brightly through, basking them both in what Isabela assumed was the great king's approval.

"I once saw you up to your eyeballs in an ogre's guts, but a little sick and you go running from the room."

With a frown, Kallian shifted to a more respectable position with her back set against the glass. "I don't mind seeing someone's insides if they're dead, but the living should keep their fluids to themselves."

"You say it like that and I'll start to think you have an unhealthy attachment to corpses," Isabela remarked.

Weary lids closed over gray eyes. "What do you want, Isabela?"

"I want to know why you didn't just kill him. And don't give me any of that trash about Ferelden needing Wardens. The Vigil's full of recruits, and it's not like there's a Blight."

Kallian didn't open her eyes. For a long stretch, she didn't speak either. When she did, the words emerged reluctantly in her matter-of-fact tone. "After Ostagar, Alistair would talk about the other Wardens, those that died. He'd get choked up just thinking of it. I thought he was just being sentimental." She leaned her head back against the window, and the light painted her pale skin with the crimson of the long-dead king's tunic. "Then I was alone. Alistair was king. Riordan was dead. Loghain was dead."

She opened her eyes without raising her head. "We had a Joining in Amaranthine—Oghren and Anders, then Nathaniel. And I could feel the taint in them in my blood. They fought together. They fought alongside me. Like brothers."

Isabela crossed her arms over her chest. "And then you left them."

The Commander glared at her as she leaned away from the glass. "You're the last person I'd expect to lecture me about going after Zevran."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Isabela said, shaking her head. "He was being a melodramatic little twat and I'm glad you went off to slap some sense into him. My point is that maybe your Wardens were more tied to you than to each other."

When Kallian hunched her shoulders, she seemed suddenly smaller, and Isabela noticed for the first time how her feet dangled several inches above the floor. "Then maybe I owe Anders something for not being there," the Commander muttered.

"And that something you owe him is locking him up in the Vigil?"

Isabela's raised eyebrow was met by one of Kallian's. "You have a better idea?"

"Leave him with me."

The Commander snorted. "And what in the Maker's name makes you think that's a better idea?"

"I have need of a healer," Isabela noted with a shrug. "And you know he wouldn't last in Amaranthine. You force him to stay in one place that long and he'll either go mad or turn on you to escape."

A sharp gray gaze fixed on her. "Speaking from personal experience?"

Isabela felt her eyebrows pinch together in what was probably an unflattering frown. "Well, aren't we both full of insight today?" she snipped. Then she threw up her hands. "Yes, all right? Maybe you're not the only one who feels a debt for leaving friends behind."

"You repaid him when you saved his life," Kallian stated.

Isabela folded her arms again, tucking her hands at her sides. "I didn't just mean him."

When getting down from the window seat, Kallian was forced into a small hop, which she covered by quickly mirroring Isabela's cross-armed posture. "I've only met Hawke once, but from what she said that night, I'm not sure she'd thank you for saving him."

"She wouldn't thank you for dragging him off," Isabela insisted. "If she'd wanted him dead or in chains, she would have handed him over to Sebastian in Kirkwall."

"I think she sometimes regrets that she didn't."

"She'd regret it more if she had." No doubt troubled Isabela's mind on that score. "She believed in Anders, even at his worst. That's why she's so pissed off."

Kallian's eyebrow twitched upward again. "She believed in –"

"Don't," Isabela cut in, and she had to look away from narrowed elven eyes. Whatever Hawke had said about her, whatever Hawke felt about how she'd left them all, Isabela planned never to hear it. Better to sail to the ends of Thedas. "So does Anders stay with me or not?"

"And what will you do if he loses control?" Kallian asked. "You're no templar."

"Of course not," Isabela said, turning back to her. "I'd look ridiculous in that armor." She spread her arms wide as if to show she were not in fact dressed in a templar's raiments. "If he loses control, I imagine I'll blow up. I'm willing to take that risk."

"And your crew?" Kallian pressed. "Are they willing?"

"When they signed on, they accepted that I'd decide their risk. That's the price they pay for not having to do any of the thinking."

Kallian's eyes set on her with a shrewdness more suited to the Merchants' Guild than the Wardens, the look of a woman raised to barter for every scrap of coin she could come by in the alienage. "He'll still be a Warden. If I have need of him, he'll be where I tell him to be. That means you'll be where I tell you to be."

Isabela rolled her eyes. "Like that doesn't happen already, you bossy bitch. Is there anyone in Thedas you don't give orders to?"

"I'm still working on the Divine," Kallian deadpanned. Then a hint of a smile tilted the corners of her lips. "Probably because I can't convince her to sleep with Zevran."

"He is the most potent weapon in your arsenal," Isabela agreed. "Though I'm not sure how effective he'll be if the qunari ever attack."

The Warden-Commander waved her hand. "The qunari are Hawke's problem. I've enough to do with the darkspawn."

"I hope you don't use Zevran on _them_," Isabela said.

Kallian's smile deepened a bit, teasing out the dimples whose existence seemed to be a state secret of some importance for how rarely she showed them. "Only his daggers."

As if on cue, the door down the hall creaked open and the man in question stepped through and gallantly offered his arm to the old mage who followed. Wynne made a soft scoffing sound and rolled her eyes at his elaborate bow, but she accepted the arm nonetheless. As the two pairs walked to meet in the middle of the corridor, Isabela could see that the old mage had gone a little gray in the face as well.

"How is he?" Kallian asked.

"He'll be fine after a day or two of rest," Wynne answered. She smiled as she answered Kallian's concerned frown. "As will I. At least until it is my spirit's time to depart."

"A day that will be met by the tearing of garments and wild sobbing in the streets," Zevran remarked. "On the part of our grandchildren. We three of course will be long deceased," he added, gesturing toward himself and then Isabela and Kallian.

Wynne clucked her tongue and shook her head, but Zevran continued his accounting of the extravagant mourning that would meet her passing as they walked on toward her chambers, Kallian in step beside them. Isabela's gaze fell on the door they had emerged from, and she moved toward it almost before conscious choice.

Listening with an ear against the wood, she heard nothing. She eased it open, slipped through, and eased it slowly closed again, wincing at the click. She didn't know if Anders felt like the morning after a night at port, but when she turned to the bed, she saw that he certainly looked it—curled up on his side, lank hair clinging to his sweat-streaked face. His waxy pallor had been replaced by a violent red flush. She grabbed a chair from in front of the fire and carried it to the bedside, then settled herself at a respectable distance from the retching basin and propped one boot on the bed frame.

"How are you feeling?"

Anders dragged his eyes from the floor to meet her gaze. "I haven't sicked up in nearly five whole minutes," he croaked. "So vastly improved." He rolled over onto his back with a groan of effort. "Remind me never to get on Zevran's bad side."

Isabela snorted. "Zev's bad side usually ends with a quick death after fantastic sex."

"Sex with a gorgeous elf _and_ a quick death? That sounds a lot like paradise right now," Anders said, raising an arm to cover his eyes from the light. "Would you ask him to come in here? I'd like to insult his mother."

"His mother is a dead elven whore. I doubt there's anything you can say that he hasn't heard."

When Anders didn't respond, Isabela half-expected that he'd passed out. Just as she was about to rise and tiptoe out again, he peeked out at her from beneath his crooked elbow. "I expected you to be halfway to Rivain by now." His curiosity seemed to barely overcome the weariness that weighed down every line of him.

"Rivain's ghastly this time of year," she replied with a shrug.

"As opposed to Ferelden?"

"You have a point. As soon as you can drag your sorry ass out of that bed, we'll be off."

Confusion was battling back against exhaustion, and Anders lowered his arm further as he made a mostly futile effort to push himself up on the other elbow. "We're traveling to Amaranthine by sea?"

"I'm not going to Amaranthine. And neither are you." When his confused frown deepened and he struggled harder to rise, she poked him in the chest with the toe of her boot until he fell back. "I've arranged it with Kallian, so don't be an idiot and start questioning it or one of us is likely to change her mind."

He allowed himself to be pushed down, but his eyes never left hers. They seemed to have lost some of their fever-addled glaze. "Zevran told me about some of the things you've done for them."

Isabela glanced toward the window and the steel-gray winter sky beyond. "Zev has a big mouth. Which he usually puts to better use than talking."

"Did you really go with them to Tevinter to free elves from the alienage here?"

"I provided transport," Isabela retorted. She pulled her boot form the bed and crossed her arms over her chest. "And I was paid handsomely. In coin and sex."

"And that girl on the ship… she wasn't a lyrium smuggler, was she?"

With a frustrated grunt, Isabela turned her gaze back to the bed. "What's your point?"

His eyes focused on her, clear and sharp. "Would you do the same for mages?" She scowled and shook her head, but before she could speak, Anders held up one hand. "I don't mean anything… grand. Just… if we came across someone, someone like I was, who just wanted to get away… would you help them?"

As she pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, Isabela wondered if she'd made a horrible mistake and knew it probably would not be the last time. "I make no promises."

"Can I have a cat?"

She dropped her hand into her lap. "You can't be serious."

He shrugged, a hint of a smile on his lips. "Ships have rats, don't they?"

"Why in the name of Andraste's heaving bosom would you want a cat?"

"When the templars locked me in solitary confinement, my only company was a cat. I think I would have gone insane without him." Anders wiped a hand across his face, then grimaced at the sweat that left a greasy shine on his fingers.

"Ironic, isn't it?" he continued. He wiped his hand on the sheet, avoiding her eyes. "I spent so much time trying to escape the templars partly because I hated being watched all the time. Yet I couldn't stand being alone. And almost the moment I'm free of the Circle, I invite a spirit into my head where he can see not only everything I do but everything I think."

Isabela returned her boot to the bed frame, and it let out a soft creak, but Anders didn't look up from where his fingers smoothed the gray bed linens. "No one's watching what you think now," she noted.

"I know. You'd think I'd be dancing in the streets. Anders's Spicy Shimmy." His gaze followed the same escape route hers had and rested on the waiting sky. "Honestly, I'm not sure what I feel about it."

"Do what I do when I'm confused about something," she suggested.

When he turned back to her, his eyelids drooped over his dulled-again eyes. "Which is?"

"Drink whiskey until you can't remember what you're confused about." A short laugh escaped him, but he had to scramble to the edge of the bed as a wave of vomit followed it. Isabela cringed away from the smell and sound rising from the basin and got to her feet, hands on her hips. "You may want to wait until you stop sicking up."

"_If_ I ever stop sicking up," Anders moaned, still half-draped over the bedside. "Tell Zevran I said his mother was a filthy knife-eared harlot."

"You'll have to do better than that if you want him to kill you twice in one day."

"Make something up then and tell him I said it," Anders replied as his hand groped behind him for a blanket. He tugged it up and huddled deep inside it. "Something really horrible. I'm sure you can manage that."

"I'm sure I could, but why should I? What's in it for me?"

He glanced up at her with possibly the most pitiful eyes she'd ever seen, the very picture of abject misery. "If he kills me I won't heave my guts all over your ship."

"Good point. I'll see what I can do." She turned to go but paused halfway to the door when he called her name.

"Isabela…" he said again. Nothing more followed as he licked his dry lips. Embers popped in the fireplace, the only remnants of the fire stoked when the man and the spirit had still been joined. The weight of all that had passed pressed down on the man, and he finally gave her a rueful smile and a simple "Thank you."

Her boots turned back toward the door. "Wait to thank me until after he kills you."

He half-laughed again, even more quietly this time, as if he could sneak it past the nausea. "And how exactly would I do that?"

"There are wraiths and spirits all around us, sweet thing." She pulled open the door and stepped across the threshold before glancing back at him. "You should know it better than most." He frowned and more questions fought to break the surface of the quiet, but she shut the door between them and left him to his new peace.


	7. The Duel

Dawn was a poor choice for leaving the palace, whatever the tides might say. The pale light only emphasized the gray tinge to Anders's skin. The few travelers on the streets gave them wide berth after glancing at his face; he certainly looked like he was carrying plague. The lack of traffic was a blessing at least. He seemed barely able to keep his feet on the empty streets, and Isabela guessed he'd fare far worse in a crowd. He stumbled over a loose cobblestone, and she caught him under the arm to steady him.

"You sure you're well enough to be out of bed?" she asked. Her breath clouded in the morning chill.

"I'm sure my staying at the palace any longer would be dangerous for all of us," he answered, his eyes on his feet. "I haven't stayed more than a day in one place for a very long time."

"I know the feeling," she replied.

He peeked at her from beneath the hood of Isaac's cloak, which only served to remind her that she still hadn't come up with a decent excuse for borrowing it. "Do you think the qunari will catch you one day?" he asked.

"Do you think the templars will catch you?" she countered.

Looking up at the sky, he winced as though the sun were at full noon instead of barely risen. "I honestly don't know."

They meandered through the narrow alleys that led to the docks, stepping over the occasional drunk still snoring in a gutter. Eventually the smell of salt grew stronger than the smell of the chamber pots being flung out of windows, and Isabela allowed herself a deep breath. After turning two more corners, she got her first glittering glimpse of the sea and the masts standing straight like the trees they'd once been.

"Enjoy your last moments on land," she said. "You might not see it again for awhile."

Anders's gaze darted all around them, through she had a feeling it was more to look for pursuit than appreciate the scenery. Given the way he'd left Ayesleigh, she couldn't really blame him. "What will you do with me when we do make port?" he asked.

"I won't do anything with you," Isabela said. "I'll likely have better offers in port."

His snort was only part amusement and mostly annoyance, but it was still more than she'd ever gotten in Kirkwall. "I meant, will I be confined to the ship?"

"I don't take prisoners, sweet thing."

Honey-brown eyes peered at her again from beneath the edge of the hood. "I don't know if I find that comforting or disturbing."

Isabela only shrugged, eager to feel planking beneath her feet. They broke free of the stifling city blocks shadowed by stone buildings and entered the forest of masts lining the quay. The boom of sails unfurling surrounded them; she wasn't the only captain planning to sail the morning tide. There'd be a jostle at the harbor mouth, but once they caught the eastward wind, the _Chant_ would outpace the larger merchant vessels and nothing would stand between her and the horizon.

Her grin at that thought died when she saw her ship's sails still tightly bound. While the decks of other ships rang with boot steps and shouted commands, only silence and stillness graced hers, though she could see almost every hand on deck. As they neared the gangplank, she gestured for Anders to wait at the bottom. Isaac waited for her at the top, his mouth set in a grim line.

"Funny, I don't remember calling an inspection," she said to him.

"Some of the crew would like a word with you, Captain." His eye held a warning, but he kept his arms crossed over his chest instead of resting his hand on his weapon's hilt, their signal for imminent violence. So she walked out to take her place before the main mast and the ragged lines of her crew.

"What's this all about then?" she asked in a voice loud enough to carry over the docks' commotion.

Rolan stepped forward looking much more clear-eyed than he had after their night in Antiva. She suspected he hadn't left the ship at all, and as she looked over the other assembled faces—serious, every one—she began to suspect he hadn't been alone.

"It's not about you, Captain," he said. The words sounded practiced, like a speech in a play. "You've done well enough by us." He flung an arm out to point down the gangplank in an equally theatrical gesture. "It's about him. We all know what he is. We all saw what he did to that other ship."

Isabela placed her hands on her hips. "You mean when we were almost boarded and cut down like dogs?"

Rolan barreled on, thrusting his dramatic finger toward the stern on the ship. "You give passage to the Warden-Commander."

"What of it?" Her eyes roved over the crew. Not a few of them seemed anxious to be looking anywhere but at the discussion playing out before them.

"They say the apostate that brought down the Chantry in Kirkwall was a Warden," Rolan continued. "They say the prince of Starkhaven will pay more gold than a man can spend in a lifetime for that apostate."

Leaning back against the mast, Isabela inspected the fingernails of one hand. "We should keep an eye out for him then."

"The templars pay a reward for any apostate." Rolan's voice rose. "And they don't look kindly on those harboring them."

Isabela rolled her eyes. "The templars don't look kindly on anyone." She stepped away from the mast and folded her arms under her chest as she addressed the rest of the crew. "What has that got to do with why you're all standing around instead of preparing my ship for sail?"

"We'll prepare to sail," Rolan replied, his hand drifting toward his cutlass. "As long as you set course for Starkhaven."

Isabela shifted her weight to face him, one foot in front of the other. "Llomerryn is much more fun this time of year."

"We're going to Starkhaven. You're welcome to come with us, Captain." The hiss of his cutlass leaving its sheath sent the crew shuffling backward. "But we'll go without you if we have to."

Boot steps thunked up the gangplank. "Isabela–"

"Shut up," she snapped before another word could cross Anders's lips. Her eyes never left the beefy man before her. "You want to go to Starkhaven so badly? Find your own damn ship."

"I already have," Rolan declared.

To his credit, he didn't grin; he simply marched toward her, brow furrowed and jaw set. Less to his credit was the plodding pace his air of determination lent him. Isabela let him come, watching, letting her mouth drop open as though stunned. When he was within arm's reach and she still had not drawn her weapons, he hesitated. Her boot came up between his legs, and his eyes bulged at the force. As he bent double, her elbow whipped around and slammed against his ear. He tipped toward the deck, and she drew her daggers. The pommel of one crashed against his temple to send him sprawling. She kicked him over to his back, then stomped on the hand holding the cutlass. Rolan grunted in pain but didn't release the weapon, and his other fist jabbed into her knee. She let the blow fell her, crashing on top of him. His blade came up; the glint of the sun revealed not a single nick to mar its edge. Isabela rolled off his chest and onto his upper arm, pinning it to the deck, then crossed her arm over her chest to block his strike with one of her daggers. They lay there for a moment, panting, his arm around her shoulder, intimate as lovers. Then her other dagger knifed into his belly.

He sucked in a breath, too shocked to cry out or to stop her from popping up to straddle his waist. This time when she kicked his hand, his cutlass clattered to the deck. She laid her first dagger against his throat, ignored Anders's cry of protest, and slid the blade from ear to ear. A spray of blood showered over her, dying her white tunic red. Rolan's death held no agonizing silence; his rattle rushed on with violence and finality.

Anders's boot steps rang out again, louder and louder until he dropped to his knees beside the fallen sailor. Isabela rose to her feet to turn and face the crew. Blood dripped from her weapons, her hair, the hem of her tunic. No one looked away from her now, not even when Anders uttered a resigned "Dammit." She held every eye.

"Anyone else?" she asked.

After a moment of silence, Tinker slipped through the crew, hands upraised. "I don't want your ship, Captain. But I won't sail with no apostate neither."

"Go then." She nodded toward the gangplank. A spatter of blood fell from her hair and painted a line to show the way. "And any who think as he does had better follow."

Two or three others scurried after the jogging Tinker. The rest of her crew watched her in silence, but instead of slouching in uncertainty, they stood poised at attention.

"Prepare to weigh anchor!" she yelled, and each man dashed off like an arrow loosed from a bow. "Set course for Rivain."

As the crew raced to duty, Isaac sidled up beside her. He handed her a scrap of sail cloth, and she wiped the blood from her face.

"You could have warned me there was mutiny afoot," she noted.

"I thought it'd be more fun as a surprise." He watched her swipe the cloth down each of her daggers, then took it back from her as she slid them into their scabbards. "Sometimes the men need to be reminded who's in charge. I knew you could handle it."

"Did you?"

"I wouldn't sail with you if you couldn't." He nodded toward where Anders still knelt by the body, his hands lying limp in his lap. "Just make sure you can handle _that_." Without another word, her first mate walked toward his own duty station. She watched him corral a pair of the younger hands and then gesture toward the body. He made a pushing motion with his hands, but the boys' eyes were glued to the bloody scrap in his hands. When he shooed them off, they bolted and Isabela snorted.

Then she sighed and dragged her feet toward the mage whose breeches were soaking up a widening pool of blood. She glanced down at her own clothes to find a clean place to wipe her hands, but finally gave up and settled for putting them on her hips.

"You didn't have to kill him," Anders said before she could speak. "I'm not worth it."

"This wasn't about you. This is my ship. Anyone who wants it will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands." Her sails snapped open, their bellies full of a winter wind, and she shivered. "And if that ever happens, I recommend you make yourself scarce."

When Anders still didn't look up at her, she dug her boot into his thigh. "Get below," she said. "You look like shit again, and I sold the last of the lyrium."

The deck hands hovered nearby, clutching a tarp to roll the body in, but too scared to approach. It was to them that Anders looked. The boys flinched back from his exhausted gaze, and he finally pushed to his feet to let them do their work. He didn't look back as he walked toward the hatch, only staggering when the moorings were cast loose and the ship bobbed with her first taste of freedom. Isabela watched until he'd disappeared below, then she took her place beside the wheel.


	8. The Storm

Three days later, Isabela woke to a cabin stained by sunlight the color of weak red wine. Even below decks the air pressed down, heavy with threat. Her heart began to race and a tingle of energy seemed to shoot down her spine to every nerve. A stream of curses fell from her mouth as she jumped from her bunk to tug on her clothes and boots, but she couldn't stop her lips from twitching toward a grin.

Her litany interrupted Anders's snores, and he struggled out of the blankets to blink at her from beneath a mess of tousled hair. "What is it?"

She turned back to him as she settled her necklace and just barely held back the grin from blossoming. "A storm."

His eyes went wide, but she didn't wait for further questions. Hurrying down the corridor and up the ladder to the deck, she found the crew already split between bustling to secure anything that could be and gathered near the bow at the starboard rail. Those assembled parted to allow her to pass through, their shuffling boot steps loud in the still air. The sails hung empty and listless as though taken with a fever.

Closest to the rail, Isaac leaned forward and squinted with his good eye toward the dark smudge on the horizon. Isabela took a place beside him but didn't bother to nudge him for his spy glass. Their morning's fortune swirled in the distance, where pinkish clouds faded into a lavender gray that deepened just above the waterline to a sickly greenish black. As she watched lightning fork down to meet its own reflection, the first peals of thunder rolled across the waves.

Louder boot steps and panting alerted her a moment before Anders appeared beside her still buttoning his shirt. "That doesn't look so bad," he noted.

"Not bad at all," Isabela agreed, not taking her eyes from the building thunderheads. "Assuming you're holed up in an inland fortress somewhere. It's only really a danger to anyone floating around on a wooden ship in the middle of the sea."

She felt his eyes on her, but Isaac spoke first. "I've never seen a hurricane this time of year." He spat over the rail, then turned a narrow eye on the mage beside her. "It's not natural."

"Can you go around it?" Anders asked.

"Can you turn into a dragon, scoop us up, and carry us to safety?" Isabela retorted.

"Make for shore then," the mage insisted.

"No time," Isaac said. "Why don't you do something? You mages are always conjuring your own lightning and such."

"Localized bursts are one thing. If mages started messing with the weather on a large scale, we'd probably destroy the world."

"It would be a real shame if you lot suddenly became dangerous."

"Enough, ladies," Isabela ordered. "Isaac, take the wheel. I'll lash you on." Her first mate left the rail with a surly grunt as she turned from the horizon to address the assembled crew. "Morning watch, to your bunks and batten the hatches! Forenoon watch, secure the rigging!"

The men scurried to follow her orders, and she found Anders still watching her. "What about you?" he asked. When she laid a hand on the coil of rope tucked beside the bow, he frowned in confusion. Rolling her eyes, she pantomimed wrapping the loose end around her waist and tying it to the rail, and his lips parted to release a scoffing noise. "You're not serious."

"Sweet thing, I'm a captain sailing into a hurricane. My last ship was blown to tinder by a storm. This is as serious as I get." She reached up to pat him on the cheek. "Now get below and try not to piss yourself."

Cold rain launched a stinging assault on her face and hands as she hurried toward the wheel, snatching up a loose length of rope as she went. Isaac already stood with his feet braced in the iron rings bolted to the deck just for this purpose. They didn't speak as Isabela tied his hands to the wheel. His eye was fixed on the horizon, and she knew she could give no instructions that he didn't already know. After she tied the last knot, she clapped him on the shoulder. His nod was quick, a momentary distraction from his focus. She took one last glance at the strong, ragged-nailed hands that she'd entrusted her ship to, then ran back to her place at the bow.

The _Chant _already bucked worse than a bronto, and she joined the chorus of curses as she and the last of the crew slipped about the deck. Most members of the forenoon watch had already tied themselves to the rail and huddled under lashed-down tarps. She called encouragement to them and shared grins with the most seasoned, then raised an eyebrow as she approached the bow. Anders still stood there, rain slicking loose strands of hair against his face as he struggled to simultaneously keep his feet and tie the rope at his waist into a successful knot. He looked up and offered her a wry half-smile.

"This is what it's about, right?" he shouted over the growing gale. "The rain in your face and the wind in your hair? There's not much point to being free if I'm going to huddle in your cabin."

Isabela took the rope from his hands and looped it around his waist and the rail before securing it to a belaying pin. "And here I'd thought all that manifesto scribbling had made you daft," she yelled back.

An honest laugh left him, possibly the first she'd heard since the early years in Kirkwall. "You just like it when I'm your kind of daft."

Early morning had transformed to twilight around them. Their course would clip the northern edge of the storm, and Anders turned his gaze to linger on the lighter gray off to port. Isabela stared into the black before them. The chop of the waves began to slow its rhythm, building into peaks that the ship would have to climb. The first sent them barreling into a trough deeper than the peak had been tall, and Ander gasped and gripped the rail as cold water soaked them both. As the momentum carried them up the next wave, Isabela bent low, her lips pressed to the wet wood, murmuring soothing words to the planks that creaked around them. She continued her litany as the waves rose higher. They climbed, teetered for a moment, then fell into the pit. Seawater washed over them with a power that crushed her to the deck, embraced her, pounded at her until Isabela's heartbeat danced before her eyes. Then she'd emerge, gasping and panting, feeling as if she might float away on the tether of her line with the wild joy of release.

She climbed up to straddle the rail and meet her oldest lover head-on. Arms wrapped around her leg, and she looked down to see Anders shouting at her and shaking his head. She threw her head back and laughed at whatever words he'd thrown uselessly at the storm. The sea rushed at them again, and even beneath the crush that toppled her into Anders, the laugh only retreated to her chest to emerge when the waves allowed them to breathe again.

Her ecstasy faltered as a familiar feeling raised the hair along her arms. She looked down at the mage beneath her, but he looked back with wide brown eyes that held not a flicker of blue. A moment later, a flash ignited the darkness, and the crack of thunder that followed swallowed Isabela's cry as she watched flames engulf the top of the mainmast. The crow's nest exploded in a shower of splinters, but Isabela could not tear her eyes from the fire consuming the spine of her ship. It ignored the downpour and devoured the pitch-coated wood like a starving beast.

Anders struggled out from beneath her. She didn't know what he was doing and didn't care, barely taking notice as he fought with the knot at his waist. Then as they began to climb a new crest, she saw him pull the belaying pin that held him to the rail. She cried out again and reached to snag his arm as he went skidding down the tilted deck, but her fingers got no purchase. He rolled to his back as he fell, kicking his feet to try and gain traction on the slick deck, but he slammed into the mast with a force that left him limp against the wood. The ship reached the peak of the wave, and Isabela cringed away from the next rushing drop that would send Anders flying into the deep. But they moment before they plunged, he stirred, pushing his hands and feet into the gaps of the rigging that criss-crossed the mast. For the first time in her life, she resented the crushing darkness as the sea engulfed her, and she only breathed again when she saw Anders still clinging to his makeshift harness.

As she watched, he laid his forehead against the mast and closed his eyes. For a moment, she thought exhaustion had overwhelmed him, but then she noticed a thin sheen of ice creeping up the wood. More waves crashed against them, but each time Isabela emerged, the ice had reached higher. By the third wave, the coating of crystals had nearly reached the cross-beam supporting the mainsail. It pushed on, racing the line of fire that sprinted down from the top of the mast. The ice won and spread across the rigging that held the furled sail. Steam escaped in long wisps as the fire attacked again and again, but it could not penetrate the protective layer of ice that was endlessly replenished by the mage below.

Waves doused them again and again, but Anders's ice held strong. As the sky began to gray and the peaks and troughs began to diminish, the fire consumed the last of the wood in its reach. The top of the mast cracked with a pop louder than the thunder. Isabela shouted a warning to Anders, but the ship pitched with a final whitecap, bucking off the burning debris and sending it free of the ship to sink beneath the waves.

Once the deck had steadied, Isabela tore the rope from her waist and dashed, slipping and sliding, to where Anders slumped at the base of the mast. He'd fallen onto his side with one arm still tangled in the maze of rope over his head. She knelt down beside him and picked the knots free. He lowered the shaking hand to his face and rubbed it over his eyes.

"You're mad," he said from beneath his fingers. "Absolutely barking."

Before Isabela could respond, he laughed the raucous laugh of a man who was either far gone in drink or too close to dying. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her down on top of him, crushing her lips into his. His hands clung to her hair and waist, and she clutched at him just as tightly. His mouth shifted, and he tugged at the stud beneath her lips with his teeth. She laughed a drunken chuckle of her own, glad to know he'd taken her words to heart and that this time there would be no mistaking who lay with him.

Pushing against his shoulders, she sat up, then rose to her feet and offered him a hand. He caught it up, only to press her against the mast with a renewed bout of desperate kisses and panting. Neither of them was going to last long at this rate, to say nothing of their drenched clothing, so she shoved him back again, wagging her finger.

"Not in front of the men," she scolded. "I don't plan to make port for some time, and it's cruel to tease them."

With a fire in his eyes that held nothing of justice, he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her back toward the hatch that led below. Between fits of kissing and laughter, she managed to shout to Isaac to continue on to Llomerryn. Her first mate only rolled his eyes and waved her on. They made slow progress to her cabin with slippery boots and Anders's roving hands, but eventually he had her pressed against the door closed behind them.

"Thank you," he muttered as he left a trail of kisses down her throat. "Thank you."

"Most men wait to thank me until after, sweet thing," Isabela said.

She grabbed the front of his shirt and steered him toward the bunk. As Anders fell across it, she ducked out of the way of his hands and went to her storage boxes. Digging through the smallest one, the one that held her jewelry, she found a large gold hoop. She kicked off her boots as she crossed the deck, then dropped onto Anders's lap. He gave a surprised yelp when she pushed the post of the earring through the nearly closed hole in his ear lobe. She leaned back, tipping her head to inspect his new, or rather old, look. Time and fear had left marks that no trinket could erase, but the man she'd met in the Pearl all those years ago still lingered beneath the surface.

"There," she said. "Now you look a proper pirate."

She gave a squawk of her own as he threw her down onto the bunk. "Permission to come aboard?" he asked, hovering over her.

She smirked up at him, then kicked him in the knee. He dropped to his side with a grunt, and before he could regain his breath, she straddled his waist. "Only if you let the captain come first."

"Aye, aye," he agreed with a smile.

Isabela grinned back, and he reached up to tug the rain-soaked scarf from her hair. He let it fall to the deck with a wet smack, then pulled her down for a kiss with open eyes.


	9. The Calling

_Author's note: The two epilogues that follow describe the deaths of these characters. If that's not your cup of tea and you'd prefer to imagine Isabela and Anders sailing off into the sunset, then by all means consider the previous chapter the end. And thanks for reading!_

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><p>When Kallian called a halt before the huge metal gates that shielded Orzammar from the Deep Roads, the dwarven guard saluted. Their captain, clearly a veteran of some years, signaled, and they retreated to a respectful distance. For all that Kallian had refused any pomp or ceremony, word had undoubtedly filtered down from the palace that their party was to be given every courtesy. After weeks of tedious speeches and parades in Denerim and Redcliffe and seemingly every hamlet that could muster a handful of out-of-tune instruments to play in the village square, Isabela was relieved that, to at least one old dwarven campaigner, every courtesy meant giving them all some damn privacy.<p>

But silence settled over them, broken only by the clanking winches preparing to pull the heavy gates apart. Last night they had snuck out of the palace and infiltrated Tapster's and spent the night drinking and telling bullshit stories with arms slung over shoulders. Now they all stood separate, not speaking, barely meeting each other's eyes. Isabela searched for some light-hearted remark to shrug off the tension, but when she glanced at Zevran, at the way his eyes fixed on Kallian with an intensity bordering on agony, her mind could hold nothing but the oppressive weight of the mountain above them.

Then Alistair stood before her. Away from the sun, the dull cast to his eyes and the grey fading of his skin were less pronounced. Once they'd reached the mountains, he had shed the king's armor in favor of splintmail almost identical to what he'd worn decades before when she'd first met him. His sheepish grin was just the same as well, for all the creases and lines that now surrounded it.

"Will you do something for me?" he asked.

That grin, still somehow boyish and naïve after decades of ruling a country, lightened her burdens like its own form of magic. "All these years and you wait until now to proposition me for sex?" she replied.

He shook his head as he reached into his pack. "How many times do you think I've reminded you that I'm a married man?"

"A thousand, at least."

When his hand reemerged, it held two folded pieces of parchment. "Will you take this letter to the queen?" he asked as he extended them to her. "The queen mother, I should say," he corrected himself. "And this one for the king."

Isabela took the letters, focusing on the names scrawled across them rather than see the rueful twist his grin had taken on. "Haven't you said your good-byes already? I won't answer to Anora if you've snuck off in the night like the naughty Chantry boy you are."

"I just… there was more to say, and I wanted… I wanted them to have it in writing. To keep." When she looked up at him again, he ran a hand through his hair, once more the self-conscious boy of his youth. "That's probably silly."

"I'll take them if you do one thing for me."

Her lips curled up as his eyes narrowed and one skeptical eyebrow rose. He had learned something in all the years since they'd met, but she was still quicker. Before he had time to back up more than half a step, she laced her fingers behind his head and pulled him down for a deep and lingering kiss. He tasted warm and sweet and everything that a sheltered maiden would have sighed over in her dreams of a fantasy knight, and though Isabela could not begin to count the years that had passed since she had been a sheltered virgin (if she ever had), she could appreciate those qualities nonetheless. One of her hands may have drifted to his still well-formed ass, and one of the dwarven guards may have whistled as she stepped back, tracing one thumb along her lower lip. Alistair's face blushed bright crimson.

"I've wanted to do that for ages," she noted.

"Married man," he said as he pointed at himself with an attempt at nonchalance. Then he laughed, and the bright and cheerful sound bounced off the stone and warmed her better than any whiskey. "So there's an even thousand and one."

She winked. "I won't mention it to Anora." She turned her gaze to the figure leaning in the shadow of a column. "And you, Arl Howe?"

Howe's expression barely changed, but a sharp captain's eye could catch the subtle shift as his lips quirked upward at one corner. "I'm flattered, but I think I'll decline."

"Cruel to the last," Isabela sighed. "But I was asking if you had any messages for me to convey."

"No. I have made my good-byes." His hunter's eyes were at least as sharp as hers, and when they glanced behind her, she knew it was with a purpose, to remind her that it was past time she made her good-byes as well.

Then a warm hand lay on her shoulder. She let Anders turn her around, and she met his gaze with dry eyes and an upraised eyebrow.

"Take care of Messere Mittens," he said, as she'd known he would. "He will not understand."

"It's a cat."

"A cat you promised to look after." His honey eyes glanced over her shoulder, and he leaned closer, pitching his voice to a quiet murmur. "And take care of Zev. He'll be a wreck after this."

Isabela looked to where Zev and Kallian stood in their own small pool of light. They were pressed close, his fingers curled around the plates in her armor and his eyes squeezed shut as a stream of urgent Antivan fell from his lips. Kallian looked up at him, pity and heartache filling her eyes, her feeling for once plain to read. But with every word he spoke, she shook her head.

For a moment, Isabela closed her eyes as well, to hide from any more of that particular scene. She turned away, and when she opened her eyes, she found instead the lines of Anders's face, as weathered and familiar as the charts that hung in their cabin. She lifted her hand to the laces of her shirt. "I have something for you."

The lines deepened into creases that followed the contours of his smile. "A sweet thought, love, but I really don't think we have the time."

She snorted. "No, you ass." She pulled out the small glass vial she'd tucked into her bodice and pressed it into his hand. "I got you this."

He looked down at the vial, tilting it until the torchlight gave the milky liquid the rainbow sheen of pearl. "What is it?"

"More of the Winter's Wind."

His eyebrows rose a hair's breadth, and she saw the muscles in his throat work as he swallowed. "I hardly think I'll be the last one standing in this group. But thank you." His eyes met hers again as the hand not holding the vial settled on her waist. "Thank you for everything."

His kiss was not the stuff of fairy-tale dreams; it was the kiss of every day, of salt air and sweat and the tingle before the lightning strike. The kiss of a lover she knew like the sea, waking to it each morning and falling asleep to it each night, familiar in all its tides but never boring, never completely known.

When they broke apart, he stayed near enough that she could still feel warm breath on her lips. "We did some good, didn't we?" he murmured.

Her fingers tangled in his ponytail before catching up his earring and giving it a gentle tug. "Only when we had absolutely no other choice," she answered.

"Wardens."

Kallian's voice echoed in the cavernous space, the tone of quiet command unmistakable. Howe straightened immediately, adjusting his pack to pull loose his bow and unspooling a bowstring from the pouch on his belt. Alistair stepped in front of Zevran with his hand extended, but the onetime assassin only stared at it with unseeing eyes. After a moment of awkward shifting, the human man lowered his hand and shot Isabela a worried look. She nodded, and he nodded back, a trace of his earlier smile returning. They were here for his sake, she knew, and back in Denerim she had been shocked by how oppressed he had seemed, how on edge. Now, in the face of the endless horde, the years seemed to fall off of him, each one carried away as his responsibilities to the surface world flew to new keepers.

Anders's hand lingered at her waist; it tightened its grip for just a moment before releasing her. He pressed a kiss to her temple, and before she could chide him for being a prude, he turned away and moved off to join the others. As soon as the company was complete, Kallian strode forward without a backward glance. The dwarves scrambled to turn the winches, and the first screech of the gates cut through the still air. On the walkways spanning the city above them, dwarven faces appeared, shoppers and shopkeepers taking a moment from their day-to-day lives to witness the final sacrifice of heroes.

Twin booms signaled the gates' final open position. Nothing stirred beyond them. The stretch of ancient road from this side extended to the next, no visible difference between them aside from the eerie stillness that awaited the Wardens. The guards at the gate saluted as they walked past. As soon as they passed the threshold, the captain nodded to the winchmen, and the chains clanked again.

Isabela moved a few paces to the side to stand beside Zevran. He was trembling, quivering like a cocked crossbow, all of his weight surging forward toward the narrowing space between the gates. "_No puedo_," he muttered. "I cannot. Not this."

"You promised her," Isabela murmured back. "You promised me, you Antivan bastard."

The gap shrank to a sliver. Kallian didn't look back, and Isabela couldn't decide if it was cruelty or mercy. She expected the same of Anders, but the moment before the gates sealed, he glanced over his shoulder. After decades, the glimpse of his smile prompted an automatic smirk and a wink, and his widening grin braced her for the second round of booms and the scrape of steel on steel as the bolt slid home. Zevran fell to his knees beside her. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and his lips parted to suck in a wet-sounding gasp. She had never shied away from attention, but the stares of the dwarves above and around them prickled the back of her neck. This was a private grief, not meant to be shared beyond the Wardens' companions, no matter who had called them hero and king and arl and apostate.

"Come on," Isabela said. "I want to get back to the surface before nightfall." She tucked a hand beneath Zevran's elbow and tugged him to his feet. With one arm around his waist, she steered him toward the stairs and the first steps up the long path back to the sky and sea.


	10. The End

_Warning: character death. See the author's note on the previous chapter. And as the chapter title suggests, this is the end, so thanks for reading!_

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><p>Silence and stillness wake her. The rasps that have accompanied her own wheezing have stopped. Squinting her eyes open, she winces as late afternoon light pierces through to her skull. Colors take a long time to resolve into shapes. What she thinks are swirling black spots in her vision solidify into Zevran's tattoos, still unmarred by lines or wrinkles despite the decades that have passed since they met. At least once a day she chides him for his elven selfishness, that he should age so much more slowly than she.<p>

She struggles against the lethargic weight of her muscles to lift a hand to his cheek. His skin is still warm but seems faded somehow and no breath warms her face. She lets her hand drop and musters a glare for him.

"Bastard," she grates through her dry and aching throat. Anger seems like too much trouble to summon, but she can manage annoyance that his death requires action, that she must lever herself from their sick bed and stagger up on deck to find a crew member to deal with him, to do what must be done. She can't blame him for leaving her. He kept his promise for as long as he could; she had caught him more than once examining his own set of poisons in her cabin, but he'd always returned to the deck with a cocky smirk, asking where their next adventure would take them. She cannot begrudge him taking advantage of this opportunity to do what he had promised he would not.

Long minutes pass before she can will her body to move. Each limb must be coaxed to burrow out of the warm cocoon of blankets. She lies at the edge of the cot, shivering in her sweat-soaked tunic. Her attempt to sit up ends in a clumsy roll to the deck. Her fingernails dig into the wood as she fights against the pitch and roll of the ship and her own stomach. She crawls to her table, then uses the leg to pull herself upright. Glancing toward the porthole, eyes squeezed nearly closed against the light, she expects to see a seascape of deepest indigo cut by foaming whitecaps.

Instead the sea is flat and smooth as a mirror. The shimmering blue of the sky meets its own perfect reflection at the distant horizon, creating two halves of a sphere, identical down to the smallest cloud. The sight is even more disorienting than the pitching of the deck that her muddled mind has invented, and for a moment, she nearly falls. But she clings to the edge of the table and stumbles toward the porthole. She grips the planks to either side and leans her forehead against the cool glass, hungry to gaze upon this new side of the lover that has always held her heart. She forgets all the aches and pains, the nausea, the stabbing in her chest with each drawn breath. She feels transported, as if she has stepped beyond the Veil, and wonders if this is how it would be to touch the Fade with her waking mind. If so, then all those mages locked in their towers were far freer than she was on the open sea.

A persistent weight presses against her ankles, distracting her from the vision beyond the porthole. She sags against the planking and glares down at the creature that has broken the spell that was a respite from sickness. Honey-brown eyes gaze up at her, and the thing lets out a plaintive meow before winding between her legs again.

Even if her head were clear, she would not be able to say why she took the cat aboard ship. She had finally been rid of the other one—after it had lived what was in her opinion an obscenely long life and well beyond the bounds of the promise she had made—and spent a glorious three months free of cat hair on her pillow and dead rats floating in her wash basin. And then this one had appeared sitting on a barrel at the end of her docking in Amaranthine. They'd regarded each other for a long minute—her with her hands on her hips and it with its head cocked to one side—and when she'd nodded toward the gangplank, it had jumped down from its perch and sauntered aboard. Nothing further had been said to formalize the agreement.

She kicks it away half-heartedly and nearly collapses to the deck. It scurries away and hides beneath her table to glare at her with shining eyes, but within moments, it returns to meow again.

"Stupid cat," she rasps. "I have nothing for you." She splays her fingers wide and displays her empty palms. "No food."

It streaks to the closed door, where it scratches at the wood before turning to look back at her. The space between her porthole and the door yawns vast and daunting in her current state, and she is tempted to throw the cat a rude gesture and launch herself toward the bunk and hope that she lands more or less across it. But once she lies in that bunk, she doesn't know when she'll rise again, and she has no desire to be chewed on by a starved cat.

That morbid thought propels her toward the door. The table keeps her largely upright again, and she manages the last few staggering steps before grabbing the door handle like a lifeline. She wrenches it open and leans against the door to cough and gulp down desperate lungfuls of air. The cat trots out into the corridor but pauses a few paces down and looks back at her. She waves it on, but it returns and looks up at her wide-eyed again.

"Go on," she says. "One of the crew will feed you." It doesn't go. It rises up to place one paw against her leg, and for once its claws are sheathed. She shakes her head with half a smile. "It's all right. Go on."

Instead the cat walks back into the cabin, hops onto her bunk, and kneads itself a nest in the blankets next to Zevran's still form. She has no more strength to protest, and it watches her with those honey eyes as she makes her unsteady way back to the bunk. When she flops down, the cat hisses in annoyance, then resettles itself in a tight ball against her chest. She cannot find the will to raise her hand, so she bends her face closer to nuzzle the fur at the cat's nape. It has picked up the smell of the sea. A soft rumble vibrates though her, prickling her skin with a feeling like an echo of lightning, and she is grateful she is not alone at the end.


End file.
